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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
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Copyright, 1850, 1858, 1859, 1861, 1862, 1865, 1874, 1875, 1877, 1878, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1886, 1887, 
1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, and 1895. 

By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES; TICKNOR, REED & FIELDS; JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
and HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

This Cambridge Edition of The Complete Poetic Works of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes is the fourth in a series which includes the poems and dramas of Longfel- 
low, Whittier, and Browning. It follows in its scheme the plan of the previous 
volumes. The editor was at some disadvantage in not being able to avail himself 
of the Life of Dr. Holmes which is now in preparation, but the frequent autobio- 
graphical passages in the writings of the author enabled him to illustrate a career 
devoid, even more than that of most poets, of adventure or dramatic incident. 
The head-notes, in like manner, could frequently be supplied from comment occur- 
ring in the author's prose writings and in prefaces to separate publications of poems, 
but very many of the poems are so self-explanatory that the reader requires no 
introduction. 

The policy has been pursued, as in the former cases, of taking the latest collec- 
tive edition issued in the poet's lifetime as the pattern to be followed both in text 
and in arrangement, but the opportunity has been used to include a few poems 
which were written after the latest edition appeared or had by some accident failed 
to receive the author's attention when he was making up his final collection ; no 
attempt, however, has been made, in gathering the early poems, to go outside of 
the volumes in which they were originally included. It is assumed that Dr. 
Holmes when making up these volumes intentionally disregarded some of the 
poems scattered through periodicals. This is confirmed by the attitude which he 
took when his attention was called to the omission upon the occasion of the issue 
of the Riverside Edition. He refused to give them a refuge even in an appendix. 
The arrangement here is the same as in the Riverside Edition, with some slight 
modification, chiefly caused by the introduction of new material. In accordance 
with the plan of this series and with Dr. Holmes's original intention when the 
Riverside Edition was prepared, the Juvenilia are placed in an appendix in 
smaller type. Throughout the volume, whether in head-notes or in those placed 
in the appendix, the editor's work is distinguished by the use of brackets. 

Boston, 4 Park Street, October 21, 1895. 






a 1 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . . . xi 

TO MY READERS 1 

EARLIER POEMS (1830-1836). 

■*■ Old Ironsides .... 3 

^-V-The Last Leaf 4 

The Cambridge Churchyard . 5 

To ax Insect 7 

The Dilemma 7 

^-My Aunt __8_ 

Reflections of a Proud Pedes- 
trian 8 

Daily Trials, by a Sensitive 

Man 9 

evenlng, by a tailor ... 9 

• The Dorchester Giant . . .10 

vTo the Portrait of "A Lady" 11 

The Comet 11 

The Music-Grinders ... 12 
The Treadmill Song • • .13 

The September Gale ... 13 

The Height of the Ridiculous . 11 

The Last Reader .... 11 

Poetry: A Metrical Essay . . 15 

POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 
AND 1818. 

The Pilgrim's Vision ... 26 

The Steamboat 28 

Lexington 28 

On Lending a Punch-Bowl . . 29 
A Song for the Centennial Cel- 
ebration of Harvard College, 

1836 30 

The Island Huntlng-Song • • 31 
Departed Days .... 32 
The Only Daughter ... 32 
Song written for the Dinner 
given to Charles Dickens, by 
the Young Men of Boston, Feb- 
ruary 1, 1812 .... 33 
Lines recited at the Berkshire 
Jubilee, Pittsfield, Mass., Aug- 
ust 23, 1844 33 

( Nux Postccenatica ... 35 
Verses for After -Dinner . . 36 



A Modest Request, complied with 
after the dlnner at president 
Everett's Inauguration 

The Parting Word .... 

A Song of Other Days 

Song for a Temperance Dinner 
to which Ladies were invited 
(New York Mercantile Library 
Association, November, 1812) 

A Sentiment 

A Rhymed Lesson (Urania) . 

An After-Dinner Poem (Terpsi- 
chore) 

MEDICAL POEMS. 

The Morning Visit . . . . . 

The Two Armies .... 

The Stethoscope Song • 

Extracts from a Medical Poem 

A Poem for the Meeting of the 
American Medical Association 
at New York, May 5, 1853 

A Sentiment 

Rip Van Winkle, M. D. 

Poem read at the Dinner given 
to the Author by the Medical 
Profession of the City of New 
York, April 12, 1883 



12 
12 
43 

51 

58 
59 
60 
61 



62 
63 

03 



68 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS (1819-1861). 




Prologue 


72 


Agnes 


72 


The Ploughman .... 


79 


Spring 


80 


The Study 


82 


The Bells 


83 


Non-Resistance .... 


83 


The Moral Bully . . . . 


84 


The Mind's Diet .... 


85 


Our Limitations .... 


85 


The Old Player .... 


85 


A Poem : Dedication of the Pitts- 




field Cemetery, September 9, 




1850 


87 


To Governor Swain 


89 


To an English Friend 


90 



VI 



CONTENTS 



After a Lecture on Words- 
worth 90 

After a Lecture on Moore . . 91 
After a Lecture on Keats . 92 
After a Lecture on Shelley . 92 
At the Close of a Course of 

Lectures 93 

The Hudson 94 

The New Eden .... 94 
Semi-centennial Celebration of 
the New England Society, New 
York, December 22, 1855 . . 96 
Farewell to J. R. Lowell . 97 
For the Meeting of the Burns 

Club, 1856 97 

Ode for Washington's Birthday 98 
Birthday of Daniel Webster . 98 

The Voiceless 99 

The Two Streams .... 99 
The Promise . . . . .100 

Avis 100 

The Living Temple . . . .101 
At a Birthday Festival : to J. K. 

Lowell 102 

A Birthday Tribute to J. F. 

Clarke 102 

The Gray Chief .... 102 
The Last Look : W. W- Swain . 103 
In Memory of Charles Went- 
worth Upham, Jr. . . . 103 

Martha 104 

Meeting of the Alumni of Har- 
vard College, 1857 . . . 104 
The Parting Song .... 106 
For the Meeting of the National 

Sanitary Association, 1860 . 106 
For the Burns Centennial Cel- 
ebration, 1859 107 

At a Meeting of Friends • ■ 108 
Boston Common; Three Pictures 109 
The Old Man of the Sea . . 109 
International Ode .... 110 
VrvE la France .... no 
Brother Jonathan's Lament for 
Sister Caroline . . . .111 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851- 




1889). 




Bill and Joe 


113 


A Song of " Twenty-Nine " . 


114 


Questions and Answers 


115 


An Impromptu .... 


• 115 


The Old Man dreams . 


115 


Remember — Forget . 


116 


Our Indian Summer 


117 


Mare Rubrum .... 


. 117 


The Boys 


118 



Lines 


. 119 


A Voice of the Loyal North 


. 120 


J. D. R 


. 120 


Voyage of the Good Shd? Union 120 


" Choose you this day whom 


SHE 


WILL SERVE " 


. 121 


F. W. C 


. 122 


The Last Charge 


. 123 


Our Oldest Friend 


124 


Sherman 's in Savannah 


. 124 


My Annual .... 


125 


All Here 


. 126 


Once More .... 


127 


The Old Cruiser 


. 128 


Hymn for the Class-Meeting 


129 


Even-Song 


. 130 


The Smiling Listener . 


131 


Our Sweet Singer : J. A. 


. 133 


H. C. M„ H. S., J. K. W. • 


133 


What I have come for . 


. 134 


Our Banker .... 


135 


For Class Meeting . 


. 136 


"Ad Amicos" .... 


137 


HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT 


. 138 


The Last Survivor 


140 


The Archbishop and Gil Blas 


. 141 


The Shadows .... 


142 


Benjamin Peirce 


. 143 


In the Twilight .... 


144 


A Loving-Cup Song • 


. 145 


The Girdle of Friendship 


145 


The Lyre of Anacreon . 


. 146 


The Old Tune 


146 


The Broken Circle . 


. 147 


The Angel-Thief . 


147 


After the Curfew • 


. 148 



POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF 
THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857- 
1858). 
The Chambered Nautilus . . 149 
Sun and Shadow .... 150 

Musa • .150 

A Parting Health : to J. L. Motley 151 
What We all think . . . 152 
Spring has come .... 152 

Prologue 153 

Latter-Day Warnings . • • 154 
Album Verses .... 155 

A Good Time going ! ... 155 

The Last Blossom . . . 156 

Contentment 157 

vEsTrvATiON . ... • .158 
The Deacon's Masterpiece ; or. 
The Wonderful "One-Hos; 

Shay" 158 

Prelude 160 



CONTENTS 



VII 



Parson- Turell's Legacy ; or, The 
President's Old Arm-Chair . 160 
f Ode for a Social Meeting, with 
Slight Alterations by a Tee- 
totaler 162 

POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT 
THE BREAKFAST -TABLE (1858- 
1859). 
Under the Violets . . . .163 
Hymn of Trust .... 163 
A Sun-Day Hymn . . . .163 
The Crooked Footpath . . 164 

Iris, Her Book 164 

Robinson of Leyden . . . 165 
St. Anthony the Reformer . . 166 
The Opening of the Pla.no . 166 

Midsummer 167 

De Sauty 167 

POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE 
BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872). 
Homesick in Heaven . . .169 

Fantasia 170 

Aunt Tabitha 171 

Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts . 171 
Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table 
Series 183 

SOXGS OF MANY SEASONS (1862- 
1874). 
Opening the Window . • • 185 

Programme .185 

In the Quiet Days. 
An Old-Year Song . • . 186 
Dorothy Q. : A Family Portrait . 186 
The Organ-Blower . . .187 
After the Fire . ... . . 188 

At the Pantomime . . • 189 
A Ballad of the Boston Tea- 

Party 190 

Xearing the Snow-Line . . 191 
In War Time. 
To Canaan: A Puritan War- 
Song 191 

4i Thus saith the Lord, I offer 

Thee Three Things " . .192 
Xever or Now • • ... .192 
Hymn written for the Great Cen- 
tral Fair in Philadelphia, 1864 193 

One Country 193 

God Save the Flag ! • .194 

Hymn after the Ejiancipation 

Proclamation 194 

Hymn for the Fair at Chicago, 
1865 194 



Under the Washington Elm, Cam- 
bridge 195 

Freedom, our Queen . . .195 

Army Hymn 196 

Parting Hymn .... 196 

The Flower of Liberty . . 196 

The Sweet Little Man . . 197 
Union and Liberty .... 198 
Songs of Welcome and Farewell. 
America to Russla. . . .198 

Welcome to the Grand Duke 

Alexis 199 

At the Banquet to the Grand 

Duke Alexis 199 

At the Banquet to the Chinese 

Embassy 200 

At the Banquet to the Japanese 

Embassy 201 

Bryant's Seventieth Birthday . 202 
A Farewell to Agassiz . . 203 
At a Dinner to Admiral Far- 

ragut 204 

At a Dinner to General Grant 205 
To H. W. Longfellow . . .206 
To Christian Gottfried Ehren- 

BERG 206 

A Toast to Wilkie Collins . 207 
Memorlal Verses. 

For the Services in Memory of 
Abraham Lincoln, Boston, June 
1, 1865 208 

For the Commemoration Services, 
Cambridge, July 21, 1865 . . 208 

Edward Everett : January 30, 
1865 210 

Shakespeare Tercentennlal Cele- 
bration, April 23, 1864 . .211 

In Memory of John and Robert 
Ware, May 25, 1864 . . .212 

Humboldt's Birthday : Centen- 
nlal Celebration, September 14, 
1869 213 

Poem at the Dedication of the 
Halleck Monument, July 8, 
1869 214 

Hymn for the Celebration at the 
Laying of the Corner-Stone of 
Harvard Memorial Hall, Cam- 
bridge, October 6, 1870 . . 214 

Hymn for the Dedication of Me- 
morial Hall at Cambridge, June 
23, 1874 215 

Hymn at the Funeral Services 
of Charles Sumner, April 29, 
1874 215 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



Rhymes of an Hour. 
An Impromptu at the Walcker 
Dinner upon the Completion of 
the Great Organ for Boston 
Music Hall in 1863 . . . .215 
Address for the Opening of the 
Fifth Avenue Theatre, New 
York, December 3, 1873 . . 216 

A Sea Dialogue 218 

Chanson without Music . . 219 
For the Centennial Dinner of 
the Proprietors of Boston Pier, 
or the Long Wharf, April 16, 

1873 220 

A Poem served to Order . . 221 
The Fountain of Youth . . .222 
No Time like the Old Time . 222 
A Hymn of Peace, sung at the 
"Jubilee," June 15, 1869, to the 
Music of Keller's " American 
Hymn " 223 



BUNKER - HILL BATTLE 
OTHER POEMS (1874-1877). 



AND 



Grandmother's Story of Bunker- 
Hill Battle 224 

At the "Atlantic" Dinner, De- 
cember 15, 1874 .... 227 
"Lucy:" for her Golden Wed- 
ding, October 18, 1875 . . 228 
Hymn for the Inauguration of 
the Statue of Governor An- 
drew, Hingham, October 7, 1875 229 
A Memorial Tribute to Dr. Sam- 
uel G. Howe . . , . 229 
Joseph Warren, M. D. . 230 

Old Cambridge, July 3, 1875 . 230 
Welcome to the Nations, Phila- 
delphia, July 4, 1876 . . .232 
A Familiar Letter . . . 232 

Unsatisfied 234 

How the Old Horse won the Bet 234 
An Appeal for " The Old South " 236 
The First Fan . . . .237 
To Rutherford Birchard Hayes 239 
The Ship of State . . .239 

A Family Record .... 239 



THE IRON GATE 
POEMS (1877-1881). 



AND OTHER 



The Iron Gate . . . .243 
Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum . 244 

My Aviary 247 

On the Threshold .... 249 
To George Peabody . . . 249 
At the Papyrus Club . . . 249 



For Whittier's Seventieth Birth- 
day 250 

Two Sonnets : Harvard . . .251 
The Coming Era .... 251 

In Response 252 

For the Moore Centennial Cele- 
bration 253 

To James Freeman Clarke . . 255 
Welcome to the Chicago Commer- 
cial Club 255 

American Academy Centennial 

Celebration 256 

The School-Boy .... 257 
The Silent Melody .... 263 
Our Home — Our Country . . 263 
Poem at the Centennial Anni- 
versary Dinner of the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society . . 264 

Harvard 268 

Rhymes of a Life-time . . . 268 

BEFORE THE CURFEW. 

At my Fireside .... 269 
At the Saturday Club . . .269 
Our Dead Singer. H. W. L. . 271 
Two Poems to Harriet Beecher 

Stowe on her Seventieth 

Birthday. 

I. At the Summit . . . 272 
II. The World's Homage . 272 
A Welcome to Dr. Benjamin Ap- 

thorp Gould 273 

To Frederick Henry Hedge on his 

Eightieth Birthday . . . 274 
To James Russell Lowell . . 274 
To John Greenleaf Whittier on 

his Eightieth Birthday . 275 

Prelude to a Volume printed in 

Raised Letters for the Blind 276 
Boston to Florence . . . 276 
At the Unitarian Festival, March 

8, 1882 277 

Poem for the Two Hundred and 

Fiftieth Anniversary of the 

Founding of Harvard College 277 
Post-Prandial : Phi Beta Kappa, 

1881 284 

The Flaneur : During the Tran- 
sit of Venus, 1882 . . .284 

Ave 286 

King's Chapel : Read at the Two 

Hundredth Anniversary . 286 
Hymn for the same Occasion . 287 
Hymn — The Word of Promise . 288 
Hymn read at the Dedication of 

the Oliver Wendell Holmes 



> 



CONTENTS 



IX 



Hospital at Hudson, Wisconsin, 

June 7, 1887 288 

On the Death of Pkesident Gar- 
field 289 

The Golden Flower . . .290 

Youth 290 

Hail. Columbia! .... 290 

Poem for the Dedication of the 

Fountain at Str atford-on-Avon, 

presented by george w- childs, 

of Philadelphia . . ' . .291 

To the Poets who only read and 

listen 292 

For the Dedication of the New 

City Library, Boston . . . 293 
To James Russell Lowell, at the 
Dinner giyen in his honor at 
the Tayern Club, on his Seven- 
tieth Birthday, February 22, 

1889 293 

But One Talent . . . .293 
For the Window in St. Marga- 
ret's 296 

James Russell Lowell : 1819-1891 . 296 
In Memory of John Greenleaf 
Whittier : December 17, 1807 — 
September 7, 1892 . . .297 
To the Teachers of America . 298 
Hymn written for the Twenty- 
fifth Anniversary of the Re- 
organization of the Boston 
Young Men's Christian Union, 

May 31, 1893 298 

Francis Parkman: September 16, 
1823 — November 8, 1893 . . 298 

POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS. 
To the Eleven Ladies who pre- 
sented me with a Silver Lov- 
ing Cup 300 

The Peau de Chagrin of State 

Street 300 

Cacoethes Scribendi . . . 300 
The Rose and the Fern . . 301 

I Like you and I Love you , 301 
La Maison d*Or (Bar Harbor) . 301 
Too Young for Love . . .301 
The Broomstick Train; or, The 
Return of the Witches . . 301 

Tartarus 304 

At the Turn of the Road . . 304 
In vita Minerva .... 305 

READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS. ' 

To my Old Readers .... 306 



The Banker's Secret . . . 307 
The Exile's Secret . . . .311 
The Lover's Secret . . . 313 
The Statesman's Secret . . 315 

The Mother's Secret . . . 317 
The Secret of the Stars . . 319 
APPENDIX. 

I. Verses from the Oldest Port- 

folio. 
First Verses : Translation from 

THE iENEID 321 

The Meeting of the Dryads . 321 
The Mysterious Visitor . . 322 

The Toadstool 323 

The Spectre Pig . . . .323 
To a Caged Lion . . . .324 
The Star and the Water-Lily . 325 
Illustration of a Picture : "A 

Spanish Girl in Reverie " . . 325 
A Roman Aqueduct . . . 326 
From a Bachelor's Private Jour- 
nal 326 

La Grisette 326 

Our Yankee Girls .... 327 

L'Inconnue 327 

Stanzas 327 

Lines by a Clerk .... 327 
The Philosopher to his Love . 328 
The Poet's Lot .... 328 
To a Blank Sheet of Paper. . 328 
To the Portrait of " A Gentle- 
man " in the Atheneum Gal- 
lery 329 

The Ballad of the Oysterman . 329 
A Noontide Lyric .... 330 

The Hot Season 330 

A Portrait 331 

An Evening Thought, written 

at Sea 331 

"The Wasp " and "The Hornet" 331 

" Qui Vive ? " 331 

A Souvenir 332 

The Dying Seneca . . . .332 
The Last Prophecy of Cassan- 
dra 332 

To my Companions . . . .333 

II. Astr^ea : The Balance of Illu- 
sions 333 

III. Notes and Addenda . . . 337 

IV. A Chronological List of Dr. 
Holmes's Poems .... 341 

INDEX OF FIRST LINES . . .345 
INDEX OF TITLES .... 349 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Dr. Holmes had much to say in his writings of the problems of heredity, and was 
apparently as ready to recognize the caprices as the regular action of inherited tenden- 
cies. He may have speculated over his own descent when he wrote, in The Poet at the 
Breakfast-Table, "The various inherited instincts ripen in succession. You may be nine 
tenths paternal at one period of your life, and nine tenths maternal at another. All at 
once the traits of some immediate ancestor may come to maturity unexpectedly on one 
of the branches of your character, just as your features at different periods of your life 
betray different resemblances to your nearer or more remote relatives." One would 
fain believe that the thin poetic blood of his early ancestor Anne Bradstreet had been 
enriched by its secret passage through the veins of several generations before it issued 
in the warm pulsations of this poet of our day; but as for those generous, even passionate 
instincts of patriotism, and that strong impulse toward lawful freedom which character- 
ized the wit and philosopher, one may readily take into account the whole strain of Dr. 
Holmes's ancestry on both sides. 

With the exception of a Dutch strain a few generations before, these ancestors were of 
Xew England origin, going back to the early colonial days. John Holmes, of Puritan 
birth, settled in Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1686. His grandson, David Holmes, served 
as captain of British troops in the French and Indian war and later as a surgeon in the 
Revolutionary army. The son of this David was the Reverend Abiel Holmes, who was 
graduated at Yale College in 1782, and after a six years' pastorate in Georgia came to 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was pastor over the first parish for forty years, and 
during his pastorate beside other writings and lectures compiled The Annals of America, 
a trustworthy and creditable historical survey. His second wife was a daughter of 
Oliver Wendell, and her ancestry besides its Dutch strain was connected with the Phil- 
lipses, Quincys, and other well-known New England families. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the third child and eldest son of Abiel and Mary Wendell 
Holmes, was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809. " The year 1809," he 
says, in Our Hundred Days in Europe, " which introduced me to atmospheric existence, was 
the birth-year of Gladstone, Tennyson, Lord Houghton, and Darwin." But the circum- 
stances of his birth were as distinct from those that attended the appearance of his illustri- 
ous contemporaries as New England was sharply discriminated from old England. The 
atmosphere, however, into which he was born, was a fresh, clear, and not unscholarly one. 
It was, moreover, charged with historical traditions. Cambridge was a village, but a 
village dominated by college life. The house in which the poet was born shared until a 
recent day the honors with the Craigie House, its neighbor. For in the early days of the 
Revolution, when studies at Harvard College were suspended, this old gambrel-roofed 
house had been the headquarters of General Artemas Ward and of the Committee of 
Safety. Upon the steps of the house stood President Langdon of Harvard College, so 
tradition says, and prayed for the men, who, halting there a few moments, marched 



xii OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

forward under Colonel Prescott's lead to throw up entrenchments on Bunker Hill on the 
night of June 16, 1775 ; and in this house the boy's father, who had passed his own 
youth in the days of the Revolution, was collecting the memorabilia for his substantial 
contribution to American history. His mother, too, had her memory of a hurried exit 
from Boston during the siege, when she was six years old. 

The appearance of the gambrel-roofed house has been preserved, fortunately, in various 
sketches and photographs ; Dr. Holmes himself, who took a lively interest in the camera 
long before amateur photography was the fashion, made several copies of it from differ- 
ent points of view. But the most indelible picture of the house is in the affectionate 
portrait contained in Dr. Holmes's writings. It is a notable expression of the intense 
ardor with which he clung to places and scenes identified with his life and that of his 
forbears. By his literary workmanship he made the house, now vanished, a literary 
shrine. Not only in the detailed description contained in The Poet at the Breakfast- Table, 
but in random passages elsewhere, he delighted in recalling the dignified yet homely 
structure which was his first outward shell. " The slaughter of the Old Gambrel-roofed 
House," he says, "was a case of justifiable domicide," but he mourned over the necessity 
of its destruction. " Personally," he adds, " I have a right to mourn for it as a part of 
my life gone from me. . . . The house in which one drew his first breath and where he 
one day came into the consciousness that he was a personality, an ego, a little universe 
with a sky over him all his own, with a persistent identity, with the terrible responsibility 
of a separate, independent, inalienable existence, — that house does not ask for any 
historical associations to make it the centre of the earth for him." 

In the Introduction to A Mortal Antipathy, Dr. Holmes has dwelt upon the conditions 
of his childish life, the rural simplicity of nature, the hills which were the playground 
of his imagination, the glimpses of sails in the distance, even though the water itself 
was invisible. " I am very thankful," he says, " that the first part of my life was not 
passed shut in between high walls and treading the unimpressible and unsympathetic 
pavement." The combination of almost rustic life with academic dignity and high breed- 
ing which he has witnessed to in autobiographic passages, which Lowell has described 
so felicitously in his Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, and which struck Clough so forcibly 
when he was a sojourner there a decade or two later, was a note of that culmination of 
New England provincialism so notably reflected in much of Holmes's writings. As we 
get farther away from the period roughly circumscribed between 1815 and 1850, we 
shall see more clearly that it was the flowering time of the plant whose seeds were sown 
in 1620-1640, and Holmes was instinctively its poet and historian, as he was in point of 
years the last of the remarkable group always to be associated with New England's 
intellectual aristocracy. 

Holmes's early schooling after an initiation in a dame school, where a companion was 
the late Bishop Lee of Delaware, was under Master William Bigelow, and when ten years 
old he went to a school in Cambridgeport, where he had for schoolmates Margaret Fuller 
and Richard Henry Dana, whose famous kinsman, Washington Allston, glorified the 
rather unkempt Port with his studio. At fifteen he was sent for special preparation to 
Phillips Academy at Andover. His life there, and the companionship he enjoyed, he 
described in his pleasant paper Cinders from the Ashes, and touched with a kindly light 
in his reminiscent poem The School-Boy. 

He spent a year at Andover and then entered Harvard College with the class which 
was to graduate in 1829. In those days the classes at college were smaller than now, 
and as they all joined in common studies, the members of a class came to know one 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xiii 

another familiarly and to have such a sense of organic unity that long after college days, 
when the members were scattered and rarely came together, each still felt himself a 
member of his " class," as he might feel himself a citizen of some particular city. The 
complete roll of this class will be found in the appendix at the close of this volume, and 
though no titles or signs of honor are attached to the names, the reader will easily detect 
the presence of men who afterward came to great distinction, George T}der Bigelow, for 
a while Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; James Freeman Clarke, 
the humane, independent, and courageous preacher and public-spirited citizen; Benjamin 
Bobbins Curtis, the eminent lawyer; Benjamin Peirce, the illustrious mathematician; Dr. 
S. F. Smith, who won national repute by writing four seven-line stanzas three years 
after leaving college ; and others of less widespread fame, who yet were honored in their 
professions and offices. But the class enjoyed a distinction not granted to other classes, 
for though another college class, nine years later, had a great poet in James Russell 
Lowell, this alone had a poet who year after year at the class-meeting sang for them a 
song of memory and affection. It was the same song sung in many keys, and some of 
the music could not be shut up within narrow limits, but has found universal acceptance 
in such lines as Bill and Joe. The group of poems under the title Poems of the Class of 
'29 extends from 1851 to 1889. On that sixtieth auniversary of their graduation, 
Holmes laid down his instrument with the tender lines After the Curfew. The class 
met once more at Parker's. Three only were present, Holmes, S. F. Smith, and Samuel 
May. Then came a meeting each of the few remaining years, at Dr. Holmes's house, 
quiet, social talks, with four at the most, five being the total number of the survivors; but 
no more poems. 

The college, meanwhile, was so small a body, and was so representative of neighboring 
families, that Holmes naturally found comrades and intimate friends outside his own 
class. Charles Sumner was in the class below him, and two classes below were his own 
famous cousin, "Wendell Phillips, and his life-long friend John Lothrop Motley. It 
became his privilege to write Motley's memoir, and the correspondence between the two, 
given in part in Curtis's Letters of John Lothrop Motley, intimates the closeness of their 
relation. As Holmes struck root deeply in the soil of his forefathers, so his nature went 
out in steadfast affection toward his felloAvs. His rosary of class poems shows this, and 
the many passages in which he recalls his early associates. When he had finished his 
memoir of Motley, he wrote in warm remembrance of his task : " Did not my own con- 
sciousness migrate, or seem, at least, to transfer itself into this brilliant life history, as I 
traced its glowing record ? I, too, seemed to feel the delight of carrying with me, as if 
they were my own, the charms of a presence which made its own welcome everywhere. 
I shared his heroic toils, I partook of his literary and social triumphs, I was honored by 
the marks of distinction which gathered about him, I was wronged by the indignity from 
which he suffered, mourned with him in his sorrow, and thus, after I had been living for 
months with his memory, I felt as if I should carry a part of his being with me so long 
as my self -consciousness might remain imprisoned in the ponderable elements." 

The slight references which Dr. Holmes makes to his college life have to do with 
external things, trifling oddities which stick to the memory like burrs. The student life 
in its formal relation made but little impression on him apparently, and in later years he 
was more likely to take pride in the great advance made by the University than to dwell 
upon its worth in his own day. "During all my early years," he says, "our old Harvard 
Alma Mater sat still and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, 
like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her pedestal. The fall of that ' stony 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



foot' lias effected a miracle like the harp that Orpheus played, like the teeth that Cad- 
mus sowed." But that was long after his own college days. His predilection for litera- 
ture and his irrepressible humor were evident in the spontaneous, mirthful verses which 
came from him at this time, some before and some just after graduation. Many of them 
were printed in The Collegian, the college paper of the day, and in the collection of his 
poems they are divided between the group of Earlier Poems and the Verses from the 
Oldest Portfolio. The most active pen production was in the year after graduation, when 
he was studying law. 

It was then that he wrote the poem Old Ironsides, in a burst of indignation as he has 
described in the note at the head of the poem. The verses are fresh evidence of that 
well of patriotism which lay near the surface of his nature, ever ready to spring forth 
intcTsong or impassioned prose. It is notable that two young men of the same college 
class should so shortly after their graduation have produced two pieces of verse which 
are among the most famous of American patriotic poems, the one a fervent hymn, the 
other a trumpet call. The study of law was an experiment and apparently not carried 
on with very close or serious application. " For during that year," says Holmes, " I first 
tasted the intoxicating pleasure of authorship. A college periodical conducted by friends 
of mine, still undergraduates, tempted me into print, and there is no form of lead poison- 
ing which more rapidly and thoroughly pervades the blood and bones and marrow than 
that which reaches the young author through mental contact with type-metal. ... In 
that fatal year I had my first attack of author's lead-poisoning, and I have never quite 
got rid of it from that day to this." 

Dr. Holmes, writing fifty years or more after first taking up the study of medicine, 
was unable to recall the precise reasoning which led him to make the change of intended 
profession. The aptitude which he disclosed for it is sufficient explanation now, and it is 
very possible that, though his tastes were strongly literary, he yielded to that conviction 
which so sane a man was sure to have, that it would be unwise to depend upon letters for 
his daily bread, and so chose a profession which appealed to the humane interest and the 
scientific temper which were scarcely less prominent in his make-up. He studied partly 
in a private medical school carried on then by physicians and surgeons in Boston in good 
practice, two of whom were also professors in the Harvard Medical School, and he 
attended lectures also in this school, a division probably not unlike that which still pre- 
vails more or less in the legal profession. In April, 1833, however, he went abroad to 
avail himself of the more considerable opportunities for study in Paris, and remained 
abroad until October, 1835. 

Upon his return to America, Dr. Holmes began the practice of his profession in Boston, 
but a phrase or two in his reminiscences suggests one reason for the readiness with which 
he soon turned to academic work, and they substantiate the notion already formed of a 
very fundamental characteristic. In recalling his initiation into the study of medicine 
in Boston, he refers lightly to the first impressions produced upon him by the anatomical 
skeleton and the white faces of the patients in the hospital. " All this had to pass away 
in a little time," he adds. " I had chosen my profession, and must meet its painful and 
repulsive aspects until they lost their power over my sensibilities." A half-century after 
that first experience he could still write, upon the occasion of his second journey, after 
the long interval, to Paris, that he shrank from seeing La Pitid, the hospital where he 
worked in his student days. No one would know him there ; they would scarcely remem- 
ber anything of his old master, Louis, and besides, he goes on, " I have not been among 
hospital beds for many a year, and my sensibilities are almost as impressible as they were 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xv 

before daily habit had rendered them comparatively callous." Something, also, may have 
been due to the very close scientific methods with which he became enamored when 
studying in Paris, methods which constantly lend themselves to the service of the investi- 
gator, and tend to lead one to make his practice experimental rather than therapeutic. 
At any rate, he accepted the professorship of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth 
College in 1839, though he remained in that position only a few months, not aban- 
doning the practice of medicine in Boston ; he married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter 
of Judge Charles Jackson of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and in 1817 
was made Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Har- 
vard College, a position which he retained until the close of 1882. 

In a biographical sketch designed to accompany a collection of Holmes's poems, it is 
not to be expected that much attention should be given to the scientific side of his activ- 
ity, but it would be an unequal sketch which failed to take account of both sides of so 
animated a life, especially since they could not be, in the order of nature, absolutely dis- 
sociated. It is a coincidence worth noting that the year when Dr. Holmes took his 
degree as doctor of medicine, 1836, was the year also iu which he published his first vol- 
ume of verse. The Phi Beta Kappa society is a somewhat loose league of scholarship in 
American colleges, an order in which the merit system, as governed by the standard of 
collegiate rank, determines membership, though after admission to the league the mem- 
bers have nothing to do but to perpetuate it. At Harvard there has long been a double 
yearly function for the society, a dinner, at which wit is more abundant than wine, and a 
public meeting with an oration and poem. Oratory has flourished in this soil, and notable 
addresses have been made by Everett and Emerson in early days, by Adams and Fiske 
in later ones, and by many more who have chosen the occasion for saying what they have 
wished to say to an audience of their peers. But poetry, which shuns occasions, has only 
now and then jumped with the hour. Scarcely a poet of distinction, however, but has 
hoped he too might so force nature that poetry would somehow find wings for Phi Beta 
Kappa. 

It is indicative of the reputation which Holmes had already formed that though he had 
been absent on his professional study for two or three years, he was called on, seven 
years after graduation, to deliver the poem at the commencement in 1836. With an 
instinct for what was appropriate on occasions which never failed him, he read the poem, 
Poetry, a Metrical Essay, which is included in the first division of his poetical writings. 
As the reader will see by the notes, the poem carried as interludes two lyrics already 
printed, The Cambridge Churchyard and Old Ironsides. The introduction of these verses 
was doubtless most effective in delivery, and served to interrupt the essay in an agreeable 
fashion, but both the body of the poem and the preface with which it was introduced, 
when shortly after it appeared with a collection of poems written in the interval since 
leaving college, as a single volume, indicate the seriousness with which the young poet 
regarded his vocation. Spontaneity was a birthright, but he did not therefore disregard 
or flout at traditional form aud accepted standards. On the contrary, he showed unmis- 
takably that he belonged to the order of poets, not to the disorder of the poetic mob, and 
thus the volume which heralded his accession to literature was a witness to the perma- 
nence of his foothold. 

This volume Poetry, as we have said, was published iu 1836, and the next year he 
published a medical treatise. Thus neck and neck at the start were the two horses he 
continued to ride for many years. He did not publish a volume of poetry again until 
1847, the ye." t in which he abandoned the practice of medicine, and then he gathered the 










xvi OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

fugitive poems which had been appearing iu periodicals, or had been used on occasions 
since the publication of Poetry. It is interesting to note that among the occasional poems 
were some called out by his professional relations, as well as one or two, not occasional, 
which were inspired by his study and practice ; so impossible was it for him to sever his 
life, as did Bryant, who seemed to keep journalism in one cell of his brain and poetry in 
another, each in solitary confinement and forbidden to hold intercourse with each other. 
The volume of 1847 contained also the contents of the volume of 1836, and the poetry in 
this consolidated volume was substantially that included in the first three divisions of the 
present collection and the group of poems which form the first section of the Appendix. 
The volume was reprinted in England, and for some time to come represented the claim 
which Holmes might make to a place among poets. 

The decade which followed the publication of this volume was nevertheless a period 
both of ripening and of product. It was undoubtedly the time in which a large part of 
the work was done in the preparation of the long series of lectures which the Parkman 
professor delivered before his classes. The volume of Medical Essays in his collected 
works contain papers and discourses which belong to this decade and to the whole period 
of his professorship, but the printed matter bears a very small proportion to the whole 
volume of his professional writing and speaking. In his Farewell Address to the Medical 
School, delivered November 28, 1882, he says : " This is the thirty-sixth Course of Lec- 
tures in which I have taken my place and performed my duties as Professor of Anatomy. 
For more than half my term of office I gave instruction in Physiology, after the fashion 
of my predecessors and in the manner then generally prevalent in our schools, where the 
physiological laboratory was not a necessary part of the apparatus of instruction." Pres- 
ident Eliot bore testimony to the fidelity with which he carried on his academic work : 
" He did a great deal to make the school what it has become. He lectured regularly 
five times a week throughout the school year, and never failed to be on hand. He was 
the most careful of men in preparation of his lectures, and very painstaking in his experi- 
ments. He was very exact in dissection. His prosectors, whose duty it was to prepare 
his dissections, were always kept on the qui vive and spurred to their very best effort." 
It should not be overlooked that one of his medical writings, The Contagiousness of Puer- 
peral Fever, first published in 1843 and reissued in an enlarged form in 1855, was a dis- 
tinct contribution to science and revolutionized the practice of physicians. 

But the sessions of the medical school were not continuous through the year, and Dr. 
Holmes's intellectual activity, moreover, could not be confined within the limits of his 
professional duties. His scientific studies took him further afield, and his literary inter- 
ests, with which we have mainly to do, had already been determined by his early taste 
and inclination. At the time of which we are writing, the lecture system was popular, 
and offered to men of letters a means of livelihood and a form of publication. As the 
lectures, however, were for the most part during the academic year, it was not expedient 
for Professor Holmes to stray very far from home ; so, unlike Emerson, he was practi- 
cally confined to a circle within a short radius of Boston. In the Autocrat he has given 
humorous reminiscences of some of his experience as a lecturer, and in a bit of scholastic 
fun has hinted at the very close connection between speaking and writing in the vocation 
of a man of letters. He made his own lectures also the occasion for postludes of song. 
This he did with special grace in a course before the Lowell Institute of Boston on 
The English Poets of the Nineteenth Century. The characterizations of Wordsworth, 
Moore, Keats, and Shelley were here produced. On special occasions, also, he was ora- 
tor, though the more insistent demand was for his poetry. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Dr. Holmes is strongly indentified with Cambridge and Boston by his residence in those 
two places; but, as some of his poems hint, he had another home at Pittsfield in the west- 
ern part of the State, where he lived for seven summers. He was drawn to the locality 
by the association of Pittsfield with his great-grandfather, Colonel Jacob Wendell, who 
had a homestead there in the eighteenth century. In 1844 he was invited to attend the 
Berkshire Jubilee, where he read the lines beginning 

" Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame." 

He seems to have heeded his own invitation, for in the summer of 1848 he built a cottage 
on his inherited estate. Longfellow, who, through his wife's family, the Appletons, had 
also an interest in Pittsfield and spent many weeks there, wrote in his journal, under 
date of August 5, 1848 : " Drove over, in the afternoon, to Dr. Holmes's house on the 
old Wendell farm, — a snug little place, with views of the river and the mountains." And 
Dr. Holmes himself, writing in January, 1857, says, " Seven sweet summers, the hap- 
piest of my life. I would n't exchange the recollection of them for a suburban villa. One 
thing I shall always be glad of ; that I planted seven hundred trees for somebody to sit 
iu the shade of." There is more than one reference in his writings to his country life 
there, and among his poems some which owed their origin to occasions in his neighbor- 
hood. Others there are which sang themselves out of the nature in which he lived. 
Indeed, as Mr. Smith points out in his interesting sketch, 1 the poems which were written 
in Berkshire were lacking in scientific reference and in fun ; " It is Nature herself that 
breathes through each and every line." Later in life he made a summer home for him-/ 
self at Beverly Farms on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay. 

With the close of this decade, 1847-1857, there came a new flowering forth of 
Holmes's genius, which took a form worth noting, since, being his own, it served most 
perfectly to embody his spiritual power. In the third of what is popularly known as 
The Breakfast-Table series, namely, The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, the author dis- 
tinctly says, what the observant reader of the series will be pretty sure to discover for 
himself : — 

"I have unburdened myself in this book, and in some other pages, of what I was born 
to say. Many things that I have said in my riper days have been aching in my soul 
since I was a mere child. I say aching, because they conflicted with many of my in- 
herited beliefs, or rather traditions. I did not know then that two strains of blood were 
striving in me for the mastery, — two ! twenty, perhaps, — twenty thousand for aught I 
know, — but represented to me by two, — paternal and maternal. But I do know this : 
I have struck a good many chords, first and last, in the consciousness of other people. 
I confess to a tender feeling for my little brood of thoughts. When they have been 
welcomed and praised it has pleased me ; and if at any time they have been rudely 
handled and despitefulry treated, it has cost me a little worry. I don't despise reputa- 
tion, and I should like to be remembered as having said something worth lasting well 
enough to last." 

This passage presents briefly three very noticeable characteristics of Dr. Holmes's 
prose as contained in the series of Atlantic papers and stories. They give the mature 
thought of the writer, held back through many years for want of an adequate occasion, 
and ripened in his mind during this enforced silence ; they illustrate the effect upon his 
thought of his professional studies, which predisposed him to treat of the natural history 

1 The Poet Among the Hills. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Berkshire. By J. E. A. Smith. Pitts' 
field, Massachusetts. George Blatchford, 1895. 



xviii OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

of man, and to import into his analysis of the invisible organism of life the terms and 
methods employed in the science of the visible anatomy and physiology ; and finally 
they are warm with a sympathy for men and women, and singularly felicitous in their 
expression of many of the indistinct and half-understood experiences of life. Yet behind 
this threefold manifestation of individual genius one looks for the personality itself 
thus disclosed, and, guided by the clue offered in the biography of the author as already 
traced, sees the vivid nature, sensitive to impressions, yet stable through a substantial 
hold upon a highly developed community, the product of generations of specialized 
forces charged with electrical power and leaping into the light with gladness. We may 
please ourselves with the notion that the pent-up experience of New England found a 
vent in Dr. Holmes, but after all the nearest fact, behind which we need not go unless we 
choose, is that of a person speaking outright and not afraid of a large /. This note of 
egotism which was struck at once in the very title, so felicitous, of the first book, sounds 
throughout the series and gives it its undying charm ; for the man who does not shield 
himself behind the autobiographic form is rare, and the man who can dramatize other 
figures about a central one, and make that central one at once dramatic and dominant, is 
rarer still. 

For the form of these writings, it may be said that the impression produced upon the 
reader of the Autocrat series, which was finally gathered into a volume, is of a growth 
rather than of a premeditated artistic completeness, and this makes more evident the 
mature character of the work and its closeness to the personality of the writer. The 
first suggestion, as Holmes points out in The Autocrats Autobiography, is to be found in 
the two papers published, under the title of The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, in The 
New England Magazine for November, 1831, and January, 1832. These were written 
by Dr. Holmes shortly after his graduation from college, and before he entered on his 
medical studies. They consist of brief epigrammatic observations upon various topics, 
the desultory talk of a person engrossing conversation at a table. The form is mono- 
logue, with scarcely more than a hint at interruptions, and no attempt at characterizing 
the speaker or his listeners. Twenty-five years later, when The Atlantic Monthly was 
founded, the author remembering the fancy resumed it, and under the same title began 
a series of papers which at once had great favor and grew, possibly, beyond the writer's 
original intention. Twenty-five years had not dulled the wit and gayety of the exuber- 
ant young writer ; rather they had ripened the early fruit, and imparted a richness of 
flavor which greatly increased the value. The maturity was seen not only in the wider 
reach and deeper tone of the talk, but in the humanizing of the scheme. Out of the 
talk at the breakfast-table one began to distinguish characters and faces in the persons 
about the board, and before the Autocrat was completed there had appeared a series of 
portraits, vivid and full of interest. 

Two characters meanwhile were hinted at by Dr. Holmes rather than described or very 
palpably introduced, — the Professor and the Poet. It is not difficult to see that these 
are thin disguises for the author himself, who, in the versatility of his nature, appeals to 
the reader now as a brilliant philosopher, now as a man of science, now as a seer and 
poet. The Professor at the Breakfast-Table followed, and there was a still stronger dra- 
matic element ; some of the former characters remained, and others of even more posi- 
tive individuality were added ; a romance was inwoven and something like a plot 
sketched, so that, while the talk still went on and eddied about graver subjects than 
before, the book which grew out of the papers had more distinctly the form of a series 
of sketches from life. It was followed by two novels, Elsie Venner and The Guardian 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xix 

Angel. The talks at the breakfast-table had often gravitated toward the deep themes of 
destiny and human freedom ; the novels wrought the same subjects in the form of fiction, 
and action interpreted the thought, while still there flowed on the wonderful, apparently 
inexhaustible stream of wit, tenderness, passion, and human sympathy. Fourteen years 
after the appearance of the first of the series, came The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. A 
new group of characters, with slight reminders of former ones, occupied the pages ; 
again talk and romance blended ; and playfulness, satire, sentiment, wise reflection and 
sturdy indignation trooped across the pages. 

The Breakfast-Table series forms a group independent of the intercalated novels, and 
with its frequent poems may be taken as an artistic whole. It is hardly too much to 
say, that it makes a new contribution to the forms of literary art. It was not altogether 
novel. Such a book as Southey's The Doctor, for example, might be cited as a progeni- 
tor. Still all that went before it were characterized more by negligence and an unordered 
freedom. The distinctive mark of the Autocrat and its fellows was, as we have hinted, 
the frank domiuance of the author's personality. The elasticity of the scheme rendered 
possible a comprehensiveness of material ; the exuberance of the author's fancy and the 
fullness of his thought gave a richness to the fabric ; the poetic sense of fitness kept the 
whole within just bounds. It is illustrative of the native, personal character of this 
series, so stamped with his genius, that when in his old age Holmes felt a desire to write 
again, deliberately and at length, he returned to the same form, and in Over the Tea- 
cups essayed the old happy blending of prose and verse, the vivification of characters 
supposed to carry on discussion about a social board, when in reality one dominant 
voice, even if sometimes ventriloquial, is heard throughout, — that of the inventor of the 
characters. And it is interesting to observe how shadowy at the last these characters 
have become, so that they are scarcely more than numerical, and how instinctively the 
old man, musing over the board, has surrounded himself with the gracious presences of 
women. 

The form of these books made poetical interludes easy and natural. Sometimes the 
verses introduced were not blossoms upon the wandering vine, but cut flowers fastened 
carelessly for the lightening of the effect ; for the most part, however, they seem to 
belong where we find them, and a survey of the groups as presented in this volume con- 
firms this impression. When arranging his poems for a final collective edition, Dr. 
Holmes brought together in successive sections the poems from each of the Breakfast- 
Table series, but removed those poems which had been more arbitrarily placed first in 
these books, such as those more properly arranged under the heading Poems of the Class 
of '29. Thus the poems included in The Professor are quite distinctly the outgrowth of 
that strain of religious speculation which characterizes the work ; they are positive affir- 
mations, as if the author found a relief in occasional clear poetic expression when en- 
gaged in the heat of theological discussion. The series Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts, on 
the other hand, which constitutes the main poetic apparatus of The Poet, is more dis- 
tinctly philosophical in its nature; but when one turns to the volume and notes the form 
of insertion, he is reminded that the whole book is soberer in tone and more taken up 
with the structural treatment of the mysteries of human life, whereas The Professor was 
quite as markedly critical and more than once destructive of notions and conventions. 
The poems in The Autocrat partake of the swift, varied play of that book, and those in 
Over the Teacups show the flaring up now and then of the old flame as the book itself is 
more or less of an effort. 

For the purpose of treating this notable series as a whole, we have departed from a 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



strictly chronological survey of Dr. Holmes's career. The Autocrat appeared in 1857- 
1858, The Professor in 1859. The gap of fourteen years which intervened between 
this book and The Poet is represented in the poetical writings by the collection under 
the title Songs of Many Seasons, and both the subdivisions of that section and the titles 
of many of the poems intimate how much the author's thoughts were upon the great 
affairs which stirred his own country, — the war, the restoration of peace, and the 
beginning of that second great ingathering of the nations which will render the period 
following the war a great period in American history. He has left his impressions both 
in prose and in verse. The Atlantic Monthly afforded a convenient vehicle, as did the 
several occasions now kept alive by his verses. One of his notable papers was that 
entitled My Hunt after " the Captain" and details his experience when going to the seat of 
war in the fall of 1862 on the occasion of the wounding of a son, who bears his father's 
name and is now a justice on the bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. 

When John Lothrop Motley died, Dr. Holmes wrote a sketch of him for the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, which was afterward expanded and published as a volume. 
The book is more than a friendly testimony, it is an expression of patriotism. No one 
need be told who has read that, and the letters which he himself wrote to Motley, his 
Bread and the Newspaper, his oration on The Inevitable Trial, and the lyrics which are 
comprehended under the title In War Time, that the author of Old Ironsides had an 
ardent affection for the nation and a large-hearted belief in it. And yet great crises 
brought these expressions to pass; his familiar habit of mind was cordially local. His 
affection fastened upon his college, and in his college on his class; he had a worthy pride 
in the race from which he had sprung, and the noble clannishness which is one of the 
safeguards of social morality; he loved the city of his life, not with the merely curious 
regard of the antiquary, but with the passion of the man who can be at home only in one 
place ; and he held to New England as to a substantial entity, not to a geographical 
section of some greater whole. He did not travel, because Boston and Berkshire con- 
tented him. His laboratory was at hand; human nature was under his observation from 
the vantage-ground of home. With the instinct of a man of science, he took for analysis 
that which was most familiar to him, assured that in the bit of the world where he was 
born, and out of which he had got his nourishment, he had all he needed for the exercise 
of his wit. There is no more pathetic yet kindly figure in our literature than Little 
Boston. With poetic instinct, Dr. Holmes made him deformed, but not ugly. He put 
into him a fiery soul of local patriotism, and transfigured him thus. Under the guise of 
a bit of nature's mockery he was enabled to give vent to a flood of feeling without 
arousing laughter or contempt. All Little Boston's vehemence of civic pride is a memo- 
rial inscription, and whatever may be the fortune of the city, however august may be its 
presence, there lies embedded in this figure of Little Boston a perpetual witness to an 
imperishable civic personality. 

The poems which occupy the closing sections of this volume, Bunker-Hill Battle and 
other Poems, The Iron Gate and other Poems, and Before the Curfew, bear frequent witness 
to the strength of Dr. Holmes's fidelity to his people and his country. They hint also, 
as do his later writings, of that temper which was growing upon him, so beautifully 
reflected in his own verse : — 



Y 



Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, 

Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, 
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers 

That warm its creeping life-blood till the last." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xxi 

Thus he wrote for the breakfast given him by the publishers of The Atlantic Monthly at 
the close of 1879. Yet in 1886 he made with his daughter a journey to Europe. Most 
of the time was passed in England, where the journey was like a Royal Progress. " The 
travellers," says the London Daily News, "had barely arrived when invitations came 
pouring in upon them. They received their 'baptism of fire ' in that long conflict which 
lasts through the London season, on the first evening of their arrival in town. It con- 
sisted of a dinner, where twenty guests, celebrities and agreeable persons, were assembled. 
to meet them. The dinner was followed by a grand reception. Then began a perpetual 
round of social engagements. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions, two, three 
and four deep of the evening, was the order of the waking hours. Society was charmed 
with the genial philosopher and poet. His courteous manner, his ready wit, the fasci- 
nating nobility of his countenance, made up a charming personality. There was something 
magnetic in the glance of his blue-gray eye, in the hearty grasp of his hand. Dr. Holmes 
went to the Derby, impelled by the wish to live again the impressions of fifty years ago. 
But this time he went down in company with the Prince of "Wales, and witnessed the 
race from the grand stand. The animation with which the old man describes Ormonde, 
the beautiful bay of the Duke of Westminster, flashing past ridden by Archer, belongs to 
spirits as buoyant as were those that stirred the blood of the youth half a century 
before." The record of the journey is preserved in Our Hundred Days in Europe. 

He had a mellow evening of life. As one after another of his comrades left the 
world, he bade them good-by with a song. Thus in his old age he sang after Lowell 
and "Whittier and Parkin an ; at last his own voice was silent, and there was no one left 
in his generation to sing his farewell, for he it was who brought up the rear of the pro- 
cession of American writers of the great period, as one by one passed into the firmament 
of fame. 

He died in his home in Boston suddenly, while talking with his son, at half-past one, 
Sunday afternoon, October 7, 1894, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. 

H. E. S. 



TO MY READERS 

[Written to introduce the Blue and Gold edition of Holmes's Poems.] 

Nay, blame me not ; I might have spared 
Your patience many a trivial verse, 

Yet these my earlier welcome shared, 
So, let the better shield the worse. 

And some might say, " Those ruder songs 
Had freshness which the new have lost ; 

To spring the opening leaf belongs, 
The chestnut-burs await the frost." 

When those I wrote, my locks were brown, 
When these I write — ah, well-a-day ! 

The autumn thistle's silvery down 
Is not the purple bloom of May ! 

Go. little book, whose pages hold 

Those garnered years in loving trust ; 

How long before your blue and gold 
Shall fade and whiten in the dust ? 

sexton of the alcoved tomb, 

Where souls in leathern cerements lie, 
Tell me each living poet's doom ! 

How long before his book shall die ? 

It matters little, soon or late, 

A day, a month, a year, an age, — 

1 read oblivion in its date, 
And Finis on its title-page. 

Before we sighed, our griefs were told ; 

Before we smiled, our joys were sung ; 
And all our passions shaped of old 

In accents lost to mortal tongue. 

In vain a fresher mould we seek, — 

Can all the varied phrases tell 
That Babel's wandering children speak 

How thrushes sing or lilacs smell ? 



TO MY READERS 



Caged in the poet's lonely heart, 

Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone 

The soul that sings must dwell apart, 
Its inward melodies unknown. 

Deal gently with us, ye who read ! 

Our largest hope is unfulfilled, — 
The promise still outruns the deed, — 

The tower, but not the spire, we build. 

Our whitest pearl we never find ; 

Our ripest fruit we never reach ; 
The flowering moments of the mind 

Drop half their petals in our speech. 

These are my blossoms ; if they wear 
One streak of morn or evening's glow, 

Accept them ; but to me more fair 
The buds of song that never blow. 
April 8, 1862. 



EARLIER POEMS 



[The printing of Poetry : a Metrical Essay 
was made the occasion by the author for pub- 
lishing- the first collection of his poems in 1836. 
This contained the group afterward desig- 
nated Earlier Poems, as well as most of those 
now grouped at the end of this volume under 
the heading Verses from the Oldest Portfolio ; 
for when the volume of his verse had become 
considerable. Dr. Holmes thought best to win- 
now his first gathering, and to retain under the 
title Earlier Poems those which he regarded 
as constituent parts of his poetical product. 
The following passages are from the Preface, 
dated Boston, 1 November, 1836, which intro- 
duced the volume. 

" The shorter pieces are arranged mainly 
with reference to the dignity of their subjects. 
A few remarks with regard to a species of 
writing in which the author has occasionally 
indulged, are offered to the consideration of 
those who are disposed to criticise rigorously ; 
without the intention, however, of justifying 
all or any attempts at comic poetry, if they are 
bad specimens of their kind. 

'" The extravagant is often condemned as un- 
natural ; as if a tendency of the mind, shown 
in all ages and forms, had not its foundation 
in nature. A series of hyperbolical images is 
considered beneath criticism by the same judges 
who would write treatises upon the sculptured 
satyrs and painted arabesques of antiquity, 
which are only hyperbole in stone and colors. 
As material objects in different lights repeat 
themselves in shadows variously elongated, con- 
tracted, or exaggerated, so our solid and sober 
thoughts caricature themselves in fantastic 
shapes inseparable from their originals, and 
having a unity in their extravagance, which 
proves them to have retained their proportions 
in certain respects, however differing in out- 
line from their prototypes. To illustrate this 



by an example. Our idea of a certain great 
nation, an idea founded in substantial notions 
of its geography, its statistics, its history, in 
one aspect of the mind stretches into the sub- 
lime in the image of Britannia, and in another 
dilates into the sub-ridiculous in the person of 
John Bull. Both these personifications par- 
tially represent their object ; both are useful 
and philosophical. And I am not afraid to say 
to the declaimers upon dignity of composition, 
that a metrical arabesque of a storm or a sum- 
mer, if its images, though hyperbolical, are 
conceivable, and consistent with each other, is 
a perfectly healthy and natural exercise of the 
imagination, and not, as some might think, a 
voluntary degradation of its office. I argue, 
as I said before, for a principle, and not for 
my own attempt at its illustration. 

" I had the intention of pointing out some 
accidental plagiarisms, or coincidences as they 
might be more mildly called, discovered prin- 
cipally by myself after the composition of the 
passages where they occur ; but as they are, so 
far as I know, both innocent and insignificant, 
and as I have sometimes had literary pick- 
pockets at my own skirts, I will leave them, 
like the apples of Atalanta, as an encourage- 
ment to sagacious critics, should any such fol- 
low my footsteps. 

" I have come before the public like an actor 
who returns to fold his robes and make his bow 
to the audience. Already engaged in other 
duties, it has been with some effort that I have 
found time to adjust my own mantle ; and 
I now willingly retire to more quiet labors, 
which, if less exciting, are more certain to be 
acknowledged as useful and received with 
gratitude ; thankful that, not having staked 
all my hopes upon a single throw, I can sleep 
quietly after closing the last leaf of my little 
volume."! 



OLD IRONSIDES 

This was the popular name by which the 
frigate Constitution was known. The poem 
was first printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, 
at the time when it was proposed to break 
up the old ship as unfit for service. I subjoin 
the paragraph which led to the writing of the 



poem. It is from the Advertiser of Tuesday, 
September 14, 1830 : — 

" Old Ironsides. — It has been affirmed upon 
good authority that the Secretary of the Navy 
has recommended to the Board of Navy Com- 
missioners to dispose of the frigate Constitution. 
Since it has been understood that such a step 
was in contemplation we have heard but one 



EARLIER POEMS 



opinion expressed, and that in decided disap- 
probation of the measure. Such a national ob- 
ject of interest, so endeared to our national 
pride as Old Ironsides is, should never by any 
act of our government cease to belong- to the 
Navy, so long as our country is to be found 
upon the map of nations. In England it was 
lately determined by the Admiralty to cut the 
Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will 
be recollected bore the flag of Lord Nelson 
at the battle of Trafalgar), down to a seventy- 
four, but so loud were the lamentations of the 
people upon the proposed measure that the in- 
tention was abandoned. We confidently anti- 
cipate that the Secretary of the Navy will in 
like manner consult the general wish in regard 
to the Constitution, and either let her remain 
in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the public 
service may require." — New York Journal of 
Commerce. 

The poem was an impromptu outburst of 
feeling and was published on the next day but 
one after reading the above paragraph. [When 
Poetry : a Metrical Essay was published this 
poem was introduced as an interlude at the close 
of the second section.] 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout. 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave ; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave ; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 

THE LAST LEAF 

The poem was suggested by the sight of a 
figure well known to Bostonians [in 1831 or 



1832], that of Major Thomas Melville, " the 
last of the cocked hats," as he was sometimes 
called. The Major had been a personable 
young man, very evidently, and retained evi- 
dence of it in 

" The monumental pomp of age," — 
which had something imposing and something- 
odd about it for youthful eyes like mine. He 
was often pointed at as one of the "Indians" 
of the famous " Boston Tea-Party" of 1774. 
His aspect among the crowds of a later gen- 
eration reminded me of a withered leaf which 
has held to its stem through the storms of 
autumn and winter, and finds itself still cling- 
ing to its bough while the new growths of 
spring are bursting their buds and spreading 
their foliage all around it. I make this expla- 
nation for the benefit of those who have been 
puzzled by the lines, 

" The last leaf upon the tree 
In the spring.'''' 

The way in which it came to be written in 
a somewhat singular measure was this. I had 
become a little known as a versifier, and T 
thought that one or two other young writers 
were following my efforts with imitations, not 
meant as parodies and hardly to be considered^ 
improvements on their models. I determined 
to write in a measure which would at once be- 
tray any copyist. So far as it was suggested 
by any previous poem, the echo must have 
come from Campbell's " Battle of the Baltic," 
with its short terminal lines, such as the last 
of these two, 

" By thy wild and stormy steep, 
Elsinore. " 

But I do not remember any poem in the same 
measure, except such as have been -written 
since its publication. 

The poem as first written had one of those 
false rhymes which produce a shudder in all 
educated persons, even in the poems of Keats 
and others who ought to have known better 
than to admit them. 

The guilty verse ran thus : — 

" But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

So forlorn, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 
' They are gone ' ! " 

A little more experience, to say nothing of the 
sneer of an American critic in an English peri- 
odical, showed me that this would never do. 
Here was what is called a " cockney rhyme, ,; — 
one in which the sound of the letter r is neg- 
lected — maltreated as the letter h is insulted 
by the average Briton by leaving it out every- 
where except where it should be silent. Such 
an ill-mated pair as " forlorn " and " gone " 



THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 



could not possibly pass current in good rhyming 
society. But what to do about it was the 
question. I must keep 

" They are gone ! " 

and I could not think of any rhyme which I 
could work in satisfactorily. In this perplex- 
ity my friend. Mrs. Folsom, wife of that excel- 
lent scholar, Mr. Charles Folsom, then and for 
a long' time the unsparing and infallible cor- 
rector of the press at Cambridge, suggested 
the line, 

" Sad and wan," 

which I thankfully adopted and have always 
retained. 

Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking 
for the poem, and repeated it from memory to 
Governor Andrew, as the Governor himself told 
me. I have a copy of it made by the hand of 
Edgar Allan Poe. 

[When this poem was issued with an accom- 
paniment of illustration and decoration in 1894, 
Dr. Holmes wrote to his publishers : — 

" I have read the proof you sent me and find 
nothing in it which I feel called upon to alter 
or explain. 

" I have lasted long enough to serve as an 
illustration of my own poem. I am one of the 
very last of the leaves which still cling to 
the bough of life that budded in the spring of 
the nineteenth century. The days of my years 
are threescore and twenty, and I am almost 
half way up the steep incline which leads me 
toward the base of the new century so near to 
which I have already climbed. 

" I am pleased to find that this poem, carry- 
ing with it the marks of having been written 
in the jocund morning of life, is still read and 
cared for. It was with a smile on my lips that 
I wrote it ; I cannot read it without a sigh 
of tender remembrance. I hope it will not 
sadden my older readers, while it may amuse 
some of the younger ones to whom its experi- 
ences are as yet only floating fancies."] 

I saw him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound, 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. >( 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the priming-knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Xot a better man was found 
By the Crier on his round 

Through the town. 



But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

" They are gone. " 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow; 

But now his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 

/ 

And if I should live to be v 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



K 



THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 

[This poem was included as an interlude at 
the close of the first section in Poetry : a Metri- 
cal Essay, when that was published in book 
form.] 

Our ancient church ! its lowly tower, 

Beneath the loftier spire, 
Is shadowed when the sunset hour 

Clothes the tall shaft in fire ; 
It sinks beyond the distant eye 



EARLIER POEMS 



Long ere the glittering vane, 


No trace thine e} r e can see, 


High wheeling in the western sky, 


No altar, — and they need it not 


Has faded o'er the plain. 


Who leave their children free ! 


Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep 


Look where the turbid rain-drops stand 


Their vigil on the green ; 


In many a chiselled square ; 


One seems to guard, and one to weep, 


The knightly crest, the shield, the brand 


The dead that lie between ; 


Of honored names were there ; — 


And both roll out, so full and near, 


Alas ! for every tear is dried 


Their music's mingling waves, 


Those blazoned tablets knew, 


They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear 


Save when the icy marble's side 


Leans on the narrow graves. 


Drips with the evening dew. 


The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, 


Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, 


Whose seeds the winds have strown 


The empty urn of pride ; 


So thick, beneath the line he reads, 


There stand the Goblet and the Sun, — 


They shade the sculptured stone; 


What need of more beside ? 


The child unveils his clustered brow, 


Where lives the memory of the dead, 


And ponders for a while 


Who made their tomb a toy ? 


The graven willow's pendent bough, 


Whose ashes press that nameless bed ? 


Or rudest cherub's smile. 


Go, ask the village boy ! 


But what to them the dirge, the knell ? 


Lean o'er the slender western wall, 


These were the mourner's share, — 


Ye ever-roaming girls ; 


The sullen clang, whose heavy swell 


The breath that bids the blossom fall 


Throbbed through the beating air ; 


May lift your floating curls, 


The rattling cord, the rolling stone, 


To sweep the simple lines that tell 


The shelving sand that slid, 


An exile's date and doom ; 


And, far beneath, with hollow tone 


And sigh, for where his daughters dwell, 


Rung on the coffin's lid. 


They wreathe the stranger's tomb. 


The slumberer's mound grows fresh and 


And one amid these shades was born, 


green, 


Beneath this turf who lies, 


Then slowly disappears ; 


Once beaming 'as the summer's morn, 


The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, 


That closed her gentle eyes ; 


Earth hides his date and years ; 


If sinless angels love as we, 


But, long before the once-loved name 


Who stood thy grave beside, 


Is sunk or worn away, 


Three seraph welcomes waited thee, 


No lip the silent dust may claim, 


The daughter, sister, bride ! 


That pressed the breathing clay. 






I wandered to thy buried mound 


Go where the ancient pathway guides, 


When earth was hid below 


See where our sires laid down 


The level of the glaring ground, 


Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, 


Choked to its gates with snow, 


The patriarchs of the town ; 


And when with summer's flowery waves 


Hast thou a tear for buried love ? 


The lake of verdure rolled, 


A sigh for transient power ? 


As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves 


All that a century left above, 


Had scattered pearls and gold. 


Go, read it in an hour ! 






Nay, the soft pinions of the air, 


The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, 


That lift this trembling tone, 


The sabre's thirsting edge, 


Its breath of love may almost bear 


The hot shell, shattering in its fall, 


To kiss thy funeral stone ; 


The bayonet's rending wedge, — 


And, now thy smiles have passed away, 


Here scattered death ; yet, seek the spot, 


For all the joy they gave, 



THE DILEMMA 



May sweetest dews and warmest ray 



When damps beneath and storms above 

Have bowed these fragile towers, 
Still o'er the graves yon locust grove 

Shall swing its Orient flowers ; 
And I wonld ask no mouldering bust, 

If e'er this humble line, 
Which breathed a sigh o'er others' dust, 

Might call a tear on mine. 



TO AN INSECT 

The Katydid is " a species of grasshopper 
found in the United States, so called from the 
sound which it makes." Worcester. 

I used to hear this insect in Providence, 
Rhode Island, but I do not remember hearing- 
it in Cambridge. Massachusetts, where I passed 
my boyhood. It is well known in other towns 
in the neighborhood of Boston. 

I love to hear thine earnest voice, 

Wherever thou art hid, 
Thou testy little dogmatist, 

Thou pretty Katydid ! 
Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, — 

Old gentlefolks are they, — 
Thou say'st an undisputed thing 

In such a solemn way. 

Thou art a female, Katydid ! 

I know it by the trill 
That quivers through thy piercing notes, 

So petulant and shrill ; 
I think there is a knot of you 

Beneath the hollow tree, — 
A knot of spinster Katydids, — 

Do Katydids drink tea ? 

Oh, tell me where did Katy live, 

And what did Katy do ? 
And was she very fair and young, 

And yet so wicked, too ? 
Did Katy love a naughty man, 

Or kiss more cheeks than one ? 
I warrant Katy did no more 

Than many a Kate has done. 

Dear me ! I '11 tell you all about 

My fuss with little Jane, 
And Ann, with whom I used to walk 

So often down the lane, 
And all that tore their locks of black, 



Or wet their eyes of blue, — 
Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, 
What did poor Katy do ? 

Ah no ! the living oak shall crash, 

That stood for ages still, 
The rock shall rend its mossy base 

And thunder down the hill, 
Before the little Katydid 

Shall add one word, to tell 
The mystic story of the maid 

Whose name she knows so well. 

Peace to the ever-murmuring race ! 

And when the latest one 
Shall fol'd in death her feeble wings 

Beneath the autumn sun, 
Then shall she raise her fainting voice, 

And lift her drooping lid, 
And then the child of future years 

Shall hear what Katy did. 



THE DILEMMA 

Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, 
Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen ; 
By every name I cut on bark 
Before my morning star grew dark ; 
By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart, 
By all that thrills the beating heart ; 
The bright black eye, the melting blue, — 
I cannot choose between the two. 

I had a vision in my dreams ; — 
I saw a row of twenty beams ; 
From every beam a rope was hung, 
In every rope a lover swung ; 
I asked the hue of every eye 
That bade each luckless lover die ; 
Ten shadowy lips said, heavenly blue, 
And ten accused the darker hue. 

I asked a matron which she deemed 
With fairest light of beauty beamed ; 
She answered, some thought both were 

fair, — 
Give her blue eyes and golden hair. 
I might have liked her judgment well, 
But, as she spoke, she rung the bell, 
And all her girls, nor small nor few, 
Came marching in, — their eyes were blue. 

I asked a maiden ; back she flung 

The locks that round her forehead hung, 



8 



EARLIER POEMS 



And turned her eye, a glorious one, 
Bright as a diamond in the sun, 
On me, until beneath its rays 
I felt as if my hair would blaze ; 
She liked all eyes but eyes of green ; 
She looked at me ; what could she mean ? 

Ah ! many lids Love lurks between, 
Nor heeds the coloring of his screen ; , 
And when his random arrows fly, 
The victim falls, but knows not why. 
Gaze not upon his shield of jet, 
The shaft upon the string is set ; 
Look not beneath his azure veil, 
Though every limb were cased in mail. 

Well, both might make a martyr break 
The chain that bound him to the stake ; 
And both, with but a single ray, 
Can melt our very hearts away ; 
And both, when balanced, hardly seem 
To stir the scales, or rock the beam ; 
But that is dearest, all the while, 
That wears for us the sweetest smile. 



MY AUNT 

My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 

Long years have o'er her flown ; 
Yet still she strains the aching clasp 

That binds her virgin zone ; 
I know it hurts her, — though she looks 

As cheerful as she can ; 
Her waist is ampler than her life, 

For life is but a span. 

My aunt ! my poor deluded aunt ! 
— v Her hair is almost gray ; 
Why will she train that winter curl 

In such a spring-like way ? 
How can she lay her glasses down, 

And say she reads as well, 
When through a double convex lens 

She just makes out to spell ? 

Her father — grandpapa ! forgive 

This erring lip its smiles — 
Vowed she should make the finest girl 

Within a hundred miles ; 
He sent her to a stylish school ; 

'T was in her thirteenth June ; 
And with her, as the rules required, 

" Two towels and a spoon." 



They braced my aunt against a board, 

To make her straight and tall ; 
They laced her up, they starved her down, 

To make her light and small ; 
They pinched her feet, they singed her 
hair, 

They screwed it up with pins ; — 
Oh, never mortal suffered more 

In penance for her sins. 

So, when my precious aunt was done, 

My grandsire brought her back ; 
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth 

Might follow on the track ;) 
" Ah ! " said my grandsire, as he shook 

Some powder in his pan, 
" What could this lovely creature do 

Against a desperate man ! " 

Alas ! nor chariot, nor barouche, 

Nor bandit cavalcade, 
Tore from the trembling father's arms 

His all-accomplished maid. 
For her how happy had it been ! 

And Heaven had spared to me 
To see one sad, ungathered rose 

On my ancestral tree. 



REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD 
PEDESTRIAN 

I saw the curl of his waving lash, 
And the glance of his knowing e} r e, 

And I knew that he thought he was cutting 
a dash, 
As his steed went thundering by. 

And he may ride in the rattling gig, 

Or flourish the Stanhope gay, 
And dream that he looks exceeding big 

To the people that walk in the way ; 

But he shall think, when the night is still, 
On the stable-boy's gathering numbers, 

And the ghost of many a veteran bill 
Shall hover around his slumbers ; 

The ghastly dim shall worry his sleep, 
And constables cluster around him, 
And he shall creep from the wood-hole 
deep 
Where their spectre eyes have found 
him ! 



EVENING 



Ay ! gather your reins, and crack your 
thong, 

And bid your steed go faster ; 
He does not know, as he scrambles along, 

That he has a fool for his master ; 

And hurry away on your lonely ride, 
Nor deign from the mire to save me ; 

I will paddle it stoutly at your side 

With the tandem that nature gave me ! 



is, 



DAILY TRIALS 



TBY A SENSITIVE MAN 



Oh, there are times 
When all this fret and tumult that we hear 
so Do seem more stale than to the sexton's 
S^ ear 

His own dull chimes. 

Ding dong ! ding dong ! 

rThe world is in a simmer like a sea 
Over a pent volcano, — woe is me 
All the day long ! 

rFrom crib to shroud ! 
Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, 
And friends in boots tramp round us as we 
die, 
Snuffling aloud. 

At morning's call 
The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the 

sun, 
And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by 
one, 
Give answer all. 
.-« 

When evening dim 
*. Draws round us, then the lonely cater- 
5 waul, 

I Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall, — 
These are our hymn. 

s Women, with tongues 

^ Like polar needles, ever on the jar ; 

Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep 
fountains are 
Within their lungs. 

Children, with drums 
^ Strapped round them by the fond paternal 
ass ; 



Peripatetics with a blade of grass 
Between their thumbs. 

Vagrants, whose arts 
Have caged some devil in their mad 

machine, 
Which grinding, squeaks, with husky 
groans between, 
Come out by starts. 

Cockneys that kill 
Thin horses of a Sunday, — men, with 

clams, 
Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their 
dams 
From hill to hill. 

Soldiers, with guns, 
Making a nuisance of the blessed air, 
Child-crying bellman, children in despair, 

Screeching for buns. 

Storms, thunders, waves ! 
Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your 

fill; 
Ye sometimes rest ; men never can be still 

But in their graves. 



EVENING 

BY A TAILOR 

Day hath put on his jacket, and around 
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. 
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, 
That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, 
And hold communion with the things about 

me. 
Ah me ! how lovely is the golden braid 
That binds the skirt of night's descending 

robe ! 
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken 

threads, 
Do make a music like to rustling satin, 
As the light breezes smooth' their downy 

nap. 

Ha ! what is this that rises to my touch, 
So like a cushion ? Can it be a cabbage ? 
It is, it is that deeply injured flower, 
Which boys do flout us with ; — but yet I 

love thee, 
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green sur- 

tout. 



TO 



EARLIER POEMS 



Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as 

bright 
As these, thy puny brethren ; and thy 

' breath 
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air ; 
But now thou seemestlike a bankrupt beau, 
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, 
And growing portly in his sober garments. 

Is that a swan that rides upon the water ? 
Oh no, it is that other gentle bird, 
Which is the patron of our noble calling. 
I well remember, in my early years, 
When these young hands first closed upon 

a goose ; 
I have a scar upon my thimble finger, 
Which chronicles the hour of young ambi- 
tion. 
My father was a tailor, and his father, 
And my sire's grandsire, all of them were 

tailors ; 
They had an ancient goose, — it was an 

heirloom 
From some remoter tailor of our race. 
It happened I did see it on a time 
When none was near, and I did deal with it, 
And it did burn me, — oh, most fearfully ! 

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, 
And leap elastic from the level counter, 
Leaving the petty grievances of earth, 
The breaking thread, the din of clashing 

shears, 
And all the needles that do wound the 

spirit, 
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. 
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, 
Lays bare her shady bosom ; — I can feel 
With all around me ; — I can hail the 

flowers 
That sprig earth's mantle, — and yon quiet 

bird, 
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. 
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, 
Where Nature stows away her loveliness. 
But this unnatural posture of the legs 
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go 
Where I can coil them in their wonted fash- 



THE DORCHESTER GIANT 

The " pudding-stone " is a remarkable con- 
glomerate found very abundantly in the towns 
mentioned, all of which are in the neighbor- 



hood of Boston. We used in those primitive 
days to ask friends to ride with us when we 
meant to take them to drive with us. 

[It is interesting to see how the same sub- 
ject presented itself to the poet in different 
moods. There is a passage in The Professor at 
the Breakfast -Table which begins, " I wonder 
whether the boys who live in Roxbury and 
Dorchester are ever moved to tears or filled 
with silent awe as they look upon the rocks and 
fragments of ' pudding-stone ' abounding in 
those localities." Then follows a half page of 
eloquent speculation on the pudding-stone. ] 

There was a giant in time of old, 

A mighty one was he ; 
He had a wife, but she was a scold, 
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold ; 

And he had children three. 

It happened to be an election day, 

And the giants were choosing a king ; 
The people were not democrats then, 
They did not talk of the rights of men, 
And all that sort of thing. 

Then the giant took his children three, 
And fastened them in the pen ; 

The children roared ; quoth the giant, " Be 
still ! " 

And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill 
Rolled back the sound again. 

Then he brought them a pudding stuffed 
with plums, 
As big as the State-House dome ; 
Quoth he, " There 's something for you to 

eat ; 
So stop your mouths with your 'lection 
treat, 
And wait till your dad comes home." 

So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, 

And whittled the boughs away ; 
The boys and their mother set up a shout, 
Said he, " You 're in, and you can't get out, 
Bellow as loud as you may." 

Off he went, and he growled a tune 

As he strode the fields along ; 
'T is said a buffalo fainted away, 
And fell as cold as a lump of clay, 

When he heard the giant's song. 

But whether the story 's true or not, 
It is n't for me to show ; 



THE COMET 



There 's many a tiring that 's twice as queer 
In somebody's lectures that we hear, 
And those are true, you know. 



What are those lone ones doing now, 
The wife and the children sad ? 

Oh, they are in a terrible rout, 

Screaming, and throwing their pudding 
about, 
Acting as they were mad. 

They flung it over to Roxbury hills, 

They flung it over the plain, 
And all over Milton and Dorchester too 
Great lumps of pudding the giants threw ; 

They tumbled as thick as rain. 



Giant and mammoth have passed away, 

For ages have floated by ; 
The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, 
And every plum is turned to a stone, 

But there the puddings lie. 

And if, some pleasant afternoon, 

You '11 ask me out to ride, 
The whole of the story I will tell, 
And you shall see where the puddings fell, 

And pay for the punch beside. 



TO THE 



PORTRAIT 
LADY" 



OF 



IX THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY 

[The companion piece, To the Portrait of "A 
Gentleman r ' in the Athenceum Gallery, was rele- 
gated by the author to Verses from the Oldest 
Portfolio, when he divided his first volume as 
stated in the introductory note.] 

Well, Miss, I wonder where you live, 

I wonder what 's your name, 
I wonder how you came to be 

In such a stylish frame ; 
Perhaps you were a favorite child, 

Perhaps an only one ; 
Perhaps your friends were not aware 

You had your portrait done ! 

Yet you must be a harmless soul ; 
I cannot think that Sin 



Would care to throw his loaded dice, 
With such a stake to win ; 

I cannot think you would provoke 
The poet's wicked pen, 

Or make young women bite their lips, 
Or ruin fine young men. 

Pray, did you ever hear, my love, 

Of boys that go about, 
Who, for a very trifling sum, 

Will snip one's picture out ? 
I 'hi not averse to red and white, 

But all things have their place, 
I think a profile cut in black 

Would suit your style of face ! 

I love sweet features ; I will own 

That I should like myself 
To see my portrait on a wall, 

Or bust upon a shelf ; 
But nature sometimes makes one up 

Of such sad odds and ends, 
It really might be quite as well 

Hushed up among one's friends ! 



THE COMET 

The Comet ! He is on his way, 

And singing as he flies ; 
The whizzing planets shrink before 

The spectre of the skies ; 
Ah ! well may regal orbs burn blue, 

And satellites turn pale, 
Ten million cubic miles of head, 

Ten billion leagues of tail ! 

On, on by whistling spheres of light 

He flashes and he flames ; 
He turns not to the left nor right, 

He asks them not their names ; 
One spurn from his demoniac heel, — 

Away, away they fly, 
Where darkness might be bottled up 

And sold for " Tynan dye." 

And what would happen to the land, 

And how would look the sea, 
If in the bearded devil's path 

Our earth should chance to be ? 
Full hot and high the sea would boil, 

Full red the forests gleam ; 
Methought I saw and heard it all 

In a dyspeptic dream ! 



I 2 



EARLIER POEMS 



I saw a tutor take his tube 

The Comet's course to spy ; 
I heard a scream, — the gathered rays 

Had stewed the tutor's eye ; 
I saw a fort, — the soldiers all 

Were armed with goggles green ; 
Pop cracked the guns ! whiz flew the 
balls ! 

Bang went the magazine ! 

I saw a poet dip a scroll 

Each moment in a tub, 
I read upon the warping back, 

" The Dream of Beelzebub ; " 
He could not see his verses burn, 

Although his brain was fried, 
And ever and anon he bent 

To wet them as they dried. 

I saw the scalding pitch roll down 

The crackling, sweating pines, 
And streams of smoke, like water-spouts, 

Burst through the rumbling mines ; 
I asked the firemen why they made 

Such noise about the town ; 
They answered not, — but all the while 

The brakes went up and down. 

I saw a roasting pullet sit 

Upon a baking egg ; 
I saw a cripple scorch his hand 

Extinguishing his leg ; 
I saw nine geese upon the wing 

Towards the frozen pole, 
And every mother's gosling fell 

Crisped to a crackling coal. 

I saw the ox that browsed the grass 

Writhe in the blistering rays, 
The herbage in his shrinking jaws 

Was all a fiery blaze ; 
I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags, 

Bob through the bubbling brine ; 
And thoughts of supper crossed my soul ; 

I had been rash at mine. 

Strange sights ! strange sounds ! O fearful 
dream ! 

Its memory haunts me still, 
The steaming sea, the crimson glare, 

That wreathed each wooded hill ; 
Stranger ! if through thy reeling brain 

Such midnight visions sweep, 
Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal, 

And sweet shall be thy sleep ! 



THE MUSIC-GRINDERS 

There are three ways in which men take 
One's money from his purse, 

And very hard it is to tell 

Which of the three is worse ; 

But all of them are bad enough 
To make a body curse. 

You 're riding out some pleasant day, 
And counting up your gains ; 

A fellow jumps from out a bush, 
And takes your horse's reins, 

Another hints some words about 
A bullet in your brains. 

It 's hard to meet such pressing friends 

In such a lonely spot ; 
It 's very hard to lose your cash, 

But harder to be shot ; 
And so you take your wallet out, 

Though you would rather not. 

Perhaps you 're going out to dine, — 

Some odious creature begs 
You '11 hear about the cannon-ball 

That carried off his pegs, 
And says it is a dreadful thing 

For men to lose their legs. 

He tells you of his starving wife, 

His children to be fed, 
Poor little, lovely innocents, 

All clamorous for bread, — 
And so you kindly help to put 

A bachelor to bed. 

You 're sitting on your window-seat, 

Beneath a cloudless moon ; 
You hear a sound, that seems to wear 

The semblance of a tune, 
As if a broken fife should strive 

To drown a cracked bassoon. 

And nearer, nearer still, the tide 

Of music seems to come, 
There 's something like a human voice, 

And something like a drum ; 
You sit in speechless agony, 

Until your ear is numb. 

Poor " home, sweet home " should seem to 
be 
A very dismal place ; 



THE SEPTEMBER GALE 



13 



Your " auld acquaintance " all at once 


Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend, 


Is altered in the face ; 


And shake your spider legs ; 


Their discords sting through Burns and 


What though you 're awkward at the 


Moore, 


trade, 


Like hedgehogs dressed in lace. 


There 's time enough to learn, — 




So lean upon the rail, my lad, 


You think they are crusaders, sent 


And take another turn. 


From some infernal clime, 




To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, 


They 've built us up a noble wall, 


And dock the tail of Rhyme, 


To keep the vulgar out ; 


To crack the voice of Melody, 


We 've nothing in the world to do 


And break the legs of Time. 


But just to walk about ; 




So faster, now, you middle men, 


But hark! the air again is still, 


And try to beat the ends, — 


The music all is ground, 


It 's pleasant work to ramble round 


And silence, like a poultice, comes 


Among one's honest friends. 


To heal the blows of sound ; 




It cannot be, — it is, — it is, — 


Here, tread upon the long man's toes, 


A hat is going round ! 


He sha'n't be lazy here, — 




And punch the little fellow's ribs, 


Xo ! Pay the dentist when he leaves 


And tweak that lubber's ear, — 


A fracture in your jaw, 


He 's lost them both, — don't pull his 


And pay the owner of the bear 


hair, 


That stunned you with his paw, 


Because he wears a scratch, 


And buy the lobster that has had 


But poke. him in the further eye, 


Your knuckles in his claw ; 


That is n't in the patch. 


But if you are a portly man, 


Hark ! fellows, there 's the supper-bell, 


Put on your fiercest frown, 


And so our work is done ; 


And talk about a constable 


It 's pretty sport, — suppose we take 


To turn them out of town ; 


A round or two for fun ! 


Then close your sentence with an oath, 


If ever they should turn me out, 


And shut the window down ! 


When I have better grown, 




Now hang me, but I mean to have 


And if you are a slender man, 


A treadmill of my own ! 


Xot big enough for that, 




Or, if you cannot make a speech, 




Because you are a flat, 


THE SEPTEMBER GALE 


Go very quietly and drop 


This tremendous hurricane occurred on the 


A button in the hat ! 


23d of September, 1815. I remember it well, 




being' then seven years old. A full account of 




it was published, I think, in the records of the 


THE TREADMILL SONG 


American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 




Some of my recollections are given in The 


The stars are rolling in the sky, 


Seasons, an article to be found in a book of 


The earth rolls on below, 


mine entitled Pages from an Old Volume of 


And we can feel the rattling wheel 


Life. 


Revolving as we go. 


I 'm not a chicken ; I have seen 


Then tread away, my gallant boys, 


Full many a chill September, 


And make the axle fly ; 


And though I was a youngster then, 


Why should not wheels go round about, 


That gale I well remember ; 


Like planets in the sky ? 


The day before, my kite-string snapped, 




And I, my kite pursuing, 


Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man, 


The wind whisked off my palm-leaf hat ; 


And stir your solid pegs ! 


For me two storms were brewing ! 



14 



EARLIER POEMS 



It came as quarrels sometimes do, 

When married folks get clashing ; 
There was a heavy sigh or two, 

Before the fire was Hashing, — 
A little stir among the clouds, 

Before they rent asunder, — 
A little rocking of the trees, 

And then came on the thunder. 

Lord ! how the ponds and rivers boiled ! 

They seemed like bursting craters ! 
And oaks lay scattered on the ground 

As if they were p'taters ; 
And all above was in a howl, 

And all below a clatter, — 
The earth was like a frying-pan, 

Or some such hissing matter. 

It chanced to be our washing-day, 

And all our things were drying ; 
The storm came roaring through the 
lines, 

And set them all a flying ; 
I saw the shirts and petticoats 

Go riding off like witches ; 
I lost, ah ! bitterly I wept, — 

I lost my Sunday breeches ! 

I saw them straddling through the air, 

Alas ! too late to win them ; 
I saw them chase the clouds, as if 

The devil had been in them ; 
They were my darlings and my pride, 

My boyhood's only riches, — 
" Farewell, farewell," I faintly cried, — 

" My breeches ! O my breeches ! " 

That night I saw them in my dreams, 

How changed from what I knew 
them ! 
The dews had steeped their faded threads, 

The winds had whistled through them ! , 
I saw the wide and ghastly rents 

Where demon claws had torn them : 
A hole was in their amplest part, ' 

As if an imp had worn them. 

I have had many happy years, 

And tailors kind and clever, 
But those young pantaloons have gone 

Forever and forever ! 
And not till fate has cut the last 

Of all my earthly stitches, 
This aching heart shall cease to mourn 

My loved, my long-lost breeches ! 



THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICU- 
LOUS 

I wrote some lines once on a time 
In wondrous merry mood, 

And thought, as usual, men would say 
They were exceeding good. 

They were so queer, so very queer, 
I laughed as I would die ; 

Albeit, in the general way, 
A sober man am I. 

I called my servant, and he came ; 

How kind it was of him 
To mind a slender man like me, 

He of the mighty limb. 

" These to the printer," I exclaimed, 
And, in my humorous way, 
I added, (as a trifling jest,) 

" There '11 be the devil to pay." 

He took the paper, and I watched, 
And saw him peep within ; 

At the first line he read, his face 
Was all upon the grin. 

He read the next ; the grin grew broad, 
And shot from ear to ear ; 

He read the third ; a chuckling noise 
I now began to hear. 

The fourth ; he broke into a roar ; 

The fifth ; his waistband split ; 
The sixth ; he burst five buttons off, 

And tumbled in a fit. 

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
I watched that wretched man, 

And since, I never dare to write 
As funny as I can. 

THE LAST READER 

I sometimes sit beneath a tree 

And read my own sweet songs ; 

Though naught they may to others be, 
Each humble line prolongs 

A tone that might have passed away, 

But for that scarce remembered lay. 

I keep them like a lock or leaf 

That some dear girl has given ; 

Frail record of an hour, as brief 
As sunset clouds in heaven, 



POETRY 



J 5 



But spreading purple twilight still 
High over memory's shadowed hill. 

They lie upon my pathway bleak, 

Those flowers that once ran wild, 

As on a father's careworn cheek 
The ringlets of his child ; 

The golden mingling with the gray, 

And stealing half its snows away. 

What care I though the dust is spread 
Around these yellow leaves, 

Or o'er them his sarcastic thread 
Oblivion's insect weaves ? 

Though weeds are tangled on the stream, 

It still reflects my morning's beam. 

And therefore love I such as smile 

On these neglected songs, 
Xor deem that flattery's needless wile 

My opening bosom wrongs ; 
For who would trample, at my side, 
A few pale buds, my garden's pride ? 

It may be that my scanty ore 

Long years have washed away, 

And where were golden sands before 
Is naught but common clay ; 

Still something sparkles in the sun 

For memory to look back upon. 

And when my name no more is heard, 

My lyre no more is known, 
Still let me, like a winter's bird, 

In silence and alone, 
Fold over them the weary wing 
Once flashing through the dews of spring. 

Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap 

My youth in its decline, 
And riot in the rosy lap 

Of thoughts that once were mine, 
And give the worm my little store 
When the last reader reads no more ! 



POETRY 

A METRICAL ESSAY, READ BEFORE THE 
PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY, AUGUST, 1 836 

TO CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, THE FOL- 
LOWING METRICAL ESSAY IS AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED. 

This Academic Poem presents the simple 
and partial views of a young person trained 



after the schools of classical English verse as 
represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Camp- 
bell, with whose lines his memory was early 
stocked. It will be observed that it deals 
chiefly with the constructive side of the poet's 
function. That which makes him a poet is 
not the power of writing melodious rhymes, it 
is not the possession of ordinary human sensi- 
bilities nor even of both these qualities in con- 
nection with each other. I should rather say, 
if I were now called upon to define it, it is the 
power of transfiguring the experiences and 
shows of life into an aspect which comes from 
his imagination and kindles that of others. 
Emotion is its stimulus and language furnishes 
its expression ; but these are not all, as some 
might infer was the doctrine of the poem 
before the reader. 

A common mistake made by young persons 
who suppose themselves to have the poetical 
gift is that their own spiritual exaltation finds 
a true expression in the conventional phrases 
which are borrowed from the voices of the 
singers whose inspiration they think they 
share. 

Looking at this poem as an expression of 
some aspects of the ars poetica, with some 
passages which I can read even at this mature 
period of life without blushing for them, it 
may stand as the most serious representation 
of my early efforts. Intended as it was for 
public delivery, many of its paragraphs may 
betray the fact by their somewhat rhetorical 
and sonorous character. 

Scenes of my youth ! awake its slumber- 
ing fire ! 

Ye winds of Memory, sweep the silent lyre ! 

Ray of the past, if yet thou canst appear, 

Break through the clouds of Fancy's wan- 
ing year ; 

Chase from her breast the thin autumnal 
snow, 

If leaf or blossom still is fresh below ! 

Long have I wandered ; the returning 
tide 

Brought back an exile to his cradle's side ; 

And as my bark her time-worn flag un- 
rolled, 

To greet the land-breeze with its faded 
fold, 

So, in remembrance of my boyhood's time, 

I lift these ensigns of neglected rhyme ; 

Oh, more than blest, that, all my wander- 
ings through, 

My anchor falls where first my pennons 
flew ! 



i6 



EARLIER POEMS 



The morning light, which rains its 

quivering beams 
Wide o'er the plains, the summits, and the 

streams, 
In one broad blaze expands its golden glow 
On all that answers to its glance below ; 
Yet, changed on earth, each far reflected 

ray 
Braids with fresh hues the shining brow of 

day; 
Now, clothed in blushes by the painted 

flowers, 
Tracks on their cheeks the rosy-fingered 

hours ; 
Now, lost in shades, whose dark entangled 

leaves 
Drip at the noontide from their pendent 

eaves, 
Fades into gloom, or gleams in light again 
From every dew-drop on the jewelled plain. 

We, like the leaf, the summit, or the 

wave, 
Reflect the light our common nature gave, 
But every sunbeam, falling from her throne, 
Wears on our hearts some coloring of our 

own : 
Chilled in the slave, and burning in the free, 
Like the sealed cavern by the sparkling 

sea ; 
Lost, like the lightning in the sullen clod, 
Or shedding radiance, like the smiles of 

God; 
Pure, pale in Virtue, as the star above, 
Or quivering roseate on the leaves of Love ; 
Glaring like noontide, where it glows upon 
Ambition's sands, — the desert in the 

sun, — 
Or soft suffusing o'er the varied scene 
Life's common coloring, — intellectual 

green. 

Thus Heaven, repeating its material 
plan, 
Arched over all the rainbow mind of man ; 
But he who, blind to universal laws, 
Sees but effects, unconscious of their 

cause, — 
Believes each image in itself is bright, 
Not robed in drapery of reflected light, — 
Is like the rustic who, amidst his toil, 
Has found some crystal in his meagre soil, 
And, lost in rapture, thinks for him alone 
Earth worked her wonders on the spark- 
ling stone, 



Nor dreams that Nature, with as nice a line, 
Carved countless angles through the bound- 
less mine. 

Thus err the many, who, entranced to find 
Unwonted lustre in some clearer mind, 
Believe that Genius sets the laws at naught 
Which chain the pinions of our wildest 

thought ; 
Untaught to measure, with the eye of art, 
The wandering fancy or the wayward heart ; 
Who match the little only with the less, 
And gaze in rapture at its slight excess, 
Proud of a pebble, as the brightest gem 
Whose light might crown an emperor's 

diadem. 

And, most of all, the pure ethereal fire 
Which seems to radiate from the poet's lyre 
Is to the world a mystery and a charm, 
An iEgis wielded on a mortal's arm, 
While Reason turns her dazzled eye away, 
And bows her sceptre to her subject's sway ; 
And thus the poet, clothed with godlike 

state, 
Usurped his Maker's title — to create ; 
He, whose thoughts differing not in shape, 

but dress, 
What others feel more fitly can express, 
Sits like the maniac on his fancied throne, 
Peeps through the bars, and calls the world 

his own. 

There breathes no being but has some 

pretence 
To that fine instinct called poetic sense : 
The rudest savage, roaming through the 

wild ; 
The simplest rustic, bending o'er his child ; 
The infant, listening to the warbling bird ; 
The mother, smiling at its half-formed 

word ; 
The boy uncaged, who tracks the fields 

at large ; 
The girl, turned matron to her babe-like 

charge ; 
The freeman, casting with unpurchased 

hand 
The vote that shakes the turret of the land ; 
The slave, who, slumbering on his rusted 

chain, 
Dreams of the palm-trees on his burning 

plain ; 
The hot-cheeked reveller, tossing down the 



POETRY 



'7 



To join the chorus pealing " Auld lang 

syne ; " 

The gentle maid, whose azure eye grows 
dim, 

"While Heaven is listening to her evening 
lrynm ; 

The jewelled beauty, when her steps draw 
near 

The circling dance and dazzling chande- 
lier ; 

E'en trembling age, when Spring's renew- 
ing air 

Waves the thin ringlets of his silvered 
hair : — 

All, all are glowing with the inward flame, 

Whose wider halo wreathes the poet's 
name, 

While, unembalmed, the silent dreamer 
dies, 

His memory passing with his smiles and 
sighs ! 

If glorious visions, born for all mankind, 
The bright auroras of our twilight mind; 
If fancies, varying as the shapes that lie 
Stained on the windows of the sunset sky ; 
If hopes, that beckon with delusive gleams, 
Till the eye dances in the void of dreams ; 
If passions, following with the winds that 

urge 
Earth's wildest wanderer to her farthest 

verge ; — 
If these on all some transient hours bestow 
Of rapture tingling with its hectic glow, 
Then all are poets; and if earth had rolled 
Her myriad centuries, and her doom were 

told, 
Each moaning billow of her shoreless wave 
Would wail its requiem o'er a poet's grave! 

If to embody in a breathing word 
Tones that the spirit trembled when it 

heard ; 
To fix the image all unveiled and warm, 
And carve in language its ethereal form, 
So pure, so perfect, that the lines express 
Xo meagre shrinking, no unlaced excess; 
To feel that art, in living truth, has taught 
Ourselves, reflected in the sculptured 

thought ; — 
If this alone bestow the right to claim 
The deathless garland and the sacred name, 
Then none are poets save the saints on high, 
Whose harps can murmur all that words 

denv ! 



But though to none is granted to reveal 
In perfect semblance all that each may feel, 
As withered flowers recall forgotten love, 
So, warmed to life, our faded passions move 
In every line, where kindling fancy throws 
The gleam of pleasures or the shade of 
woes. 

When, schooled by time, the stately queen 

of art 
Had smoothed the pathways leading to the 

heart, 
Assumed her measured tread, her solemn 

tone, 
And round her courts the clouds of fable 

thrown, 
The wreaths of heaven descended on her 

shrine, 
And wondering earth proclaimed the Muse 

divine. 
Yet if her votaries had but dared profane 
The mystic symbols of her sacred reign, 
How had they smiled beneath the veil to 

find 
What slender threads can chain the mighty 

mind ! 

Poets, like painters, their machinery 

claim, 
And verse bestows the varnish and the 

frame ; 
Our grating English, whose Teutonic jar 
Shakes the racked axle of Art's rattling 

car, 
Fits like mosaic in the lines that gird 
Fast in its place each many-angled word ; 
From Saxon lips Anacreon's numbers 

glide, 
As once they melted on the Teian tide, 
And, fresh transfused, the Iliad thrills 

again 
From Albion's cliffs as o'er Achaia's plain! 
The proud heroic, with its pulse-like beat, 
Rings like the cymbals clashing as they 

meet; 
The sweet Spenserian, gathering as it 

flows, 
Sweeps gently onward to its dying close, 
Where waves on waves in long succession 

pour, 
Till the ninth billow melts along the shore; 
The lonely spirit of the mournful lay, 
Which lives immortal as the verse of Gray, 
In sable plumage slowly drifts along, 
On eagle pinion, through the air of song; 



i8 



EARLIER POEMS 



The glittering lyric bounds elastic by, 
With flashing ringlets and exulting eye, 
While every image, in her airy whirl, 
Gleams like a diamond on a dancing girl! 

Born with mankind, with man's ex- 
panded range 
And varying fates the poet's numbers 

change ; 
Thus in his history may we hope to find 
Some clearer epochs of the poet's mind, 
As from the cradle of its birth we trace, 
Slow wandering forth, the patriarchal 



I 

When the green earth, beneath the 
zephyr's wing, 

Wears on her breast the varnished buds of 
Spring; 

When the loosed current, as its folds 
uncoil, 

Slides in the channels of the mellowed soil; 

When the young hyacinth returns to seek 

The air and sunshine with her emerald 
beak; 

When the light snowdrops, starting from 
their cells, 

Hang each pagoda with its silver bells; 

When the frail willow twines her trailing 
bow 

With pallid leaves that sweep the soil 
below; 

When the broad elm, sole empress of the 
plain, 

Whose circling shadow speaks a century's 
reign, 

Wreathes in the clouds her regal dia- 
dem, — 

A forest waving on a single stem; — 

Then mark the poet; though to him un- 
known 

The quaint-mouthed titles, such as scholars 
own, 

See how his eye in ecstasy pursues 

The steps of Nature tracked in radiant 
hues; 

Nay, in thyself, whate'er may be thy fate, 

Pallid with toil or surfeited with state, 

Mark how thy fancies, with the vernal 
rose, 

Awake, all sweetness, from their long re- 
pose ; 

Then turn to ponder o'er the classic page, 

Traced with the idyls of a greener age, 



And learn the instinct which arose to 

warm 
Art's earliest essay and her simplest form. 

To themes like these her narrow path 

confined 
The first-born impulse moving in the 

mind ; 
In vales unshaken by the trumpet's sound, 
Where peaceful Labor tills his fertile 

ground, 
The silent changes of the rolling years, 
Marked on the soil or dialled on the 

spheres, 
The crested forests and the colored 

flowers, 
The dewy grottos and the blushing 

bowers, — 
These, and their guardians, who, with 

liquid names, 
Strephons and Chloes, melt in mutual 

flames, 
Woo the young Muses from their mountain 

shade, 
To make Arcadias in the lonely glade. 

Nor think they visit only with their 
smiles 
The fabled valleys and Elysian isles; 
He who is wearied of his village plain 
May roam the Edens of the world in vain. 
'Tis not the star-erowned cliff, the cata- 
ract's flow, 
The softer foliage or the greener glow, 
The lake of sapphire or the spar-hung 

cave, 
The brighter sunset or the broader wave, 
Can warm his heart whom every wind has 

blown 
To every shore, forgetful of his own. 

Home of our childhood! how affection 

clings 
And hovers round thee with her seraph 

wings ! 
Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn 

brown, 
Than fairest summits which the cedars 

crown! 
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer 

breeze 
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas! 
The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's 

sigh, 
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky! 



POETRY 



19 



Oh happiest they, whose early love un- 
changed, 

Hopes undissolved, and friendship unes- 
tranged, 

Tired of their wanderings, still can deign 
to see 

Love, hopes, and friendship, centring all in 
thee! 

And thou, my village! as again I tread 

Amidst thy living and above thy dead; 

Though some fair playmates guard with 
chaster fears 

Their cheeks, grown holy with the lapse of 
years; 

Though with the dust some reverend locks 
may blend, 

Where life's last mile-stone marks the 
journey's end; 

On every bud the changing year recalls, 

The brightening glance of morning mem- 
ory falls, 

Still following onward as the months un- 
close 

The balmy lilac or the bridal rose; 

And still shall follow, till they sink once 
more 

Beneath the snow-drifts of the frozen 
shore, 

As when my bark, long tossing in the gale, 

Furled in her port her tempest-rended sail! 

What shall I give thee ? Can a simple 

lay, 
Flung on thy bosom like a girl's bouquet, 
Do more than deck thee for an idle hour, 
Then fall unheeded, fading like the flower ? 
Yet, when I trod, with footsteps wild and 

free, 
The crackling leaves beneath yon linden- 
tree, 
Panting from play or dripping from the 

stream, 
How bright the visions of my boyish 

dream! 
Or, modest Charles, along thy broken 

edge, 
Black with soft ooze and fringed with 

arrowy sedge, 
As once I wandered in the morning sun, 
With reeking sandal and superfluous gun, 
How oft, as Fancy whispered in the gale, 
Thou wast the Avon of her flattering tale! 
Ye hills, whose foliage, fretted on the 

skies, 



Prints shadowy arches on their evening dyes, 
How should my song with holiest charm in- 
vest 
Each dark ravine and forest-lifting crest ! 
How clothe in beauty each familiar scene, 
Till all was classic on my native green! 

As the drained fountain, filled with au- 
tumn leaves, 
The field swept naked of its garnered 

sheaves, 
So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn, 
The springs all choking, and the harvest 
gone. 

Yet hear the lay of one whose natal star 
Still seemed the brightest when it snone 

afar; 
Whose cheek, grown pallid with ungracious 

toil, 
Glows in the welcome of his parent soil; 
And ask no garlands sought beyond the tide, 
But take the leaflets gathered at your side. 



II 

But times were changed ; the torch of 

terror came, 
To light the summits with the beacon's 

flame; 
The streams ran crimson, the tall mountain 

pines 
Rose a new forest o'er embattled lines; 
The bloodless sickle lent the warrior's steel, 
The harvest bowed beneath his chariot 

wheel; 
Where late the wood-clove sheltered her 

repose 
The raven waited for the conflict's close; 
The cuirassed sentry walked his sleepless 

round 
Where Daphne smiled or Amaryllis 

frowned; 
Where timid minstrels sung their blushing 

charms, 
Some wild Tyrtseus called aloud, "To 



When Glory wakes, when fiery spirits 

leap, 
Roused by her accents from their tranquil 

sleep, 
The ray that flashes from the soldier's crest 
Lights, as it glances, in the poet's breast ; — 
Mot in pale dreamers, whose fantastic lay 



EARLIER POEMS 



Toys with smooth trifles like a child at play, 
But men, who act the passions they inspire, 
AVho wave the sabre as they sweep the lyre! 

Ye mild enthusiasts, whose pacific frowns 
Are lost like dew-drops caught in burning 

towns, 
Pluck as ye will the radiant plumes of fame, 
Break Ceesar's bust to make yourselves a 

name ; 
But if your country bares the avenger's 

blade 
For wrongs unpunished or for debts unpaid, 
When the roused nation bids her armies 

form, 
And screams her eagle through the gather- 
ing storm, 
When from your ports the bannered frigate 

rides, 
Her black bows scowling to the crested tides, 
Your hour has past ; in vain your feeble 

cry 
As the babe's wailing to the thundering sky! 

Scourge of mankind! with all the dread 

array 
That wraps in wrath thy desolating way, 
As tlie wild tempest wakes the slumbering 

sea, 
Thou only teachest all that man can be. 
Alike thy tocsin has the power to charm 
The toil-knit sinews of the rustic's arm, 
Or swell the pulses in the poet's veins, 
And bid the nations tremble at his strains. 

The city slept beneath the moonbeam's 

glance, 
Her white walls gleaming through the vines 

of France, 
And all was hushed, save where the foot- 
steps fell, 
On some high tower, of midnight sentinel. 
But one still watched ; no self-encircled 

woes 
Chased from his lids the angel of repose; 
He watched, he wept, for thoughts of bitter 

years 
Bowed his dark lashes, wet with burning 

tears : 
His country's sufferings and her children's 

shame 
Streamed o'er his memory like a forest's 

flame; 
Each treasured insult, each remembered 

wrong, 



Rolled through his heart and kindled into 

song. 
His taper faded; and the morning gales 
Swept through the world the war-song of 

Marseilles! 

Now, while around the smiles of Peace 

expand, 
And Plenty's wreaths festoon the laughing 

land ; 
While France ships outward her reluctant 

ore, 
And half our navy basks upon the shore; 
From ruder themes our meek-eyed Muses 

turn 
To crown with roses their enamelled urn. 

If e'er again return those awful days 

Whose clouds were crimsoned with the 
beacon's blaze, 

Whose grass was trampled by the soldier's 
heel, 

Whose tides were reddened round the rush- 
ing keel, 

God grant some lyre may wake a nobler 
strain 

To rend the silence of our tented plain! 

When Gallia's flag its triple fold displays, 

Her marshalled legions peal the Marseil- 
laise; 

When round the German close the war- 
clouds dim, 

Far through their shadows floats his battle- 
hymn; 

When, crowned with joy, the camps of Eng- 
land ring, 

A thousand voices shout, " God save the 
King! " 

When victory follows with our eagle's 
glance, 

Our nation's anthem pipes a country dance ! 

Some prouder Muse, when comes the 
hour at last, 

May shake our hillsides with her bugle- 
blast ; 

Not ours the task; but since the lyric dress 

Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, 

Hear an old song, which some, perchance, 
have seen 

In stale gazette or cobwebbed magazine. 

There was an hour when patriots dared pro- 
fane 

The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain; 

And one, who listened to the tale of shame ? 



POETRY 



Whose heart still answered to that sacred 
name, 

Whose eye still followed o'er his country's 
tides 

Thy glorious flag, our brave Old Ironsides! 

From yon lone attic, on a smiling morn, 

Thus mocked the spoilers with his school- 
boy scorn. 

Ill 

When florid Peace resumed her golden 

reign, 
And arts revived, and valleys bloomed 

again, 
While War still panted on his broken 

blade, 
Once more the Muse her heavenly wing- 
essayed. 
Rude was the song : some ballad, stern and 

wild, 
Lulled the light slumbers of the soldier's 

child; 
Or young romancer, with his threatening 

glance 
And fearful fables of his bloodless lance, 
Scared the soft fancy of the clinging girls, 
Whose snowy fingers smoothed his raven 

curls. 
But when long years the stately form had 

bent, 
And faithless Memory her illusions lent, 
So vast the outlines of Tradition grew 
That History wondered at the shapes she 

drew, 
And veiled at length their too ambitious 

hues 
Beneath the pinions of the Epic Muse. 

Far swept her wing; for stormier days 

had brought 
With darker passions deeper tides of 

thought. 
The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's 

glow, 
The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe, 
The tender parting and the glad return, 
The festal banquet and the funeral urn, 
And all the drama which at once uprears 
Its spectral shadows through the clash of 

spears, 
From camp and field to echoing verse 

transferred, 
Swelled the proud song that listening 

nations heard. 



Why floats the amaranth in eternal 

bloom 
O'er Ilium's turrets and Achilles' tomb? 
Why lingers fancy where the sunbeams 

smile 
On Circe's gardens and Calypso's isle? 
Why follows memory to the gate of Troy 
Her plumed defender and his trembling 

boy ? 
Lo! the blind dreamer, kneeling on the 

sand 
To trace these records with his doubtful 

hand ; 
In fabled tones his own emotion flows, 
And other lips repeat his silent woes; 
In Hector's infant see the babes that shun 
Those deathlike eyes, unconscious of the 

sun, 
Or in his hero hear himself implore, 
" Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more! " 

Thus live undying through the lapse of 
time 

The solemn legends of the warrior's clime ; 

Like Egypt's pyramid or Psestum's fane, 

They stand the heralds of the voiceless 
plain. 

Yet not like them, for Time, by slow de- 
grees, 

Saps the gray stone and wears the em- 
broidered frieze, 

And Isis sleeps beneath her subject Nile, 

And crumbled Neptune strews his Dorian 

But Art's fair fabric, strengthening as it 

rears 
Its laurelled columns through the mist of 

years, 
As the blue arches of the bending skies 
Still gird the torrent, following as it flies, 
Spreads, with the surges bearing on man- 
kind, 
Its starred pavilion o'er the tides of mind! 

In vain the patriot asks some lofty lay 

To dress in state our wars of yesterday. 

The classic days, those mothers of ro- 
mance, 

That roused a nation for a woman's glance; 

The age of mystery, with its hoarded 
power, 

That girt the tyrant in his storied tower, 

Have passed and faded like a dream of 
youth, 

And riper eras ask for history's truth. 



22 



EARLIER POEMS 



On other shores, above their mouldering 

towns, 
In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns, 
Pride in its aisles and paupers at the door, 
Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced 

of yore. 
Simple and frail, our lowly temples throw 
Their slender shadows on the paths below; 
Scarce steal the winds, that sweep his 

woodland tracks, 
The larch's perfume from the settler's axe, 
Ere, like a vision of the morning air, 
His slight-framed steeple marks the house 

of prayer; 
Its planks all reeking and its paint un- 

dried, 
Its rafters sprouting on the shady side, 
It sheds the raindrops from its shingled 

eaves 
Ere its green brothers once have changed 

their leaves. 

Yet Faith's pure hymn, beneath its 

shelter rude, 
Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled 

wood 
As where the rays through pictured glories 

pour 
On marble shaft and tessellated floor; — 
Heaven asks no surplice round the heart 

that feels, 
And all is holy where devotion kneels. 

Thus on the soil the patriot's knee 
should bend 
Which holds the dust once living to de- 
fend ; 
Where'er the hireling shrinks before the 

free, 
Each pass becomes " a new Thermopylae! " 
Where'er the battles of the brave are won, 
There every mountain " looks on Mara- 
thon! " 

Our fathers live; they guard in glory 
still 

The grass-grown bastions of the fortressed 
hill; 

Still ring the echoes of the trampled 
gorge, 

With God and Freedom ! England and 
Saint George! 

The royal cipher on the captured gun 

Mocks the sharp night-dews and the blis- 
tering- sun; 



The red-cross banner shades its captor's 

bust, 
Its folds still loaded with the conflict's 

dust ; 
The drum, suspended by its tattered 

marge, 
Once rolled and rattled to the Hessian's 

charge ; 
The stars have floated from Britannia's 

mast, 
The redcoat's trumpets blown the rebel's 

blast. 

Point to the summits where the brave 

have bled, 
Where every village claims its glorious 

dead ; 
Say, when their bosoms met the bayonet's 

shock, 
Their only corselet Avas the rustic frock; 
Say, when they mustered to the gathering 

horn, 
The titled chieftain curled his lip in scorn, 
Yet, when their leader bade his lines ad- 
vance, 
No musket wavered in the lion's glance; 
Say, when they fainted in the forced 

retreat, 
They tracked the snowdrifts with their 

bleeding feet, 
Yet still their banners, tossing in the blast, 
Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last, 
Through storm and battle, till they waved 

again 
On Yorktown's hills and Saratoga's plain ! 

Then, if so fierce the insatiate patriot's 

flame, 
Truth looks too pale and history seems too 

tame, 
Bid him await some new Columbiad's x^age, 
To gild the tablets of an iron age, 
And save his tears, which yet may fall upon 
Some fabled field, some fancied Washington! 



IV 



But once again, from their iEolian cave, 
The winds of Genius wandered on the wave. 
Tired of the scenes the timid pencil drew, 
Sick of the notes the sounding clarion blew, 
Sated with heroes who had worn so long 
The shadowy plumage of historic song, 
The new-born poet left the beaten course, 
To track the passions to their living source. 



POETRY 



23 



Then rose the Drama; — and the world 
admired 

Her varied page with deeper thought in- 
spired: 

Bound to no clime, for Passion's throb is 
one 

In Greenland's twilight or in India's sun; 

Born for no age, for all the thoughts that 
roll 

In the dark vortex of the stormy soul, 

Unchained in song, no freezing years can 
tame ; 

God gave them birth, and man is still the 
same. 

So full on life her magic mirror shone, 
Her sister Arts paid tribute to her throne; 
One reared her temple, one her canvas 

warmed, 
And Music thrilled, while Eloquence in- 
formed. 
The weary rustic left his stinted task 
For smiles and tears, the dagger and the 

mask ; 
The sage, turned scholar, half forgot his lore, 
To be the woman he despised before. 
O'er sense and thought she threw her golden 

chain. 
And Time, the anarch, spares her deathless 
reign. 

Thus lives Medea, in our tamer age, 
As when her buskin pressed the Grecian 

stage ; 
Not in the cells where frigid learning delves 
In Aldine folios mouldering on their shelves, 
But breathing, burning in the glittering 

throng, 
Whose thousand bravos roll untired along, 
Circling and spreading through the gilded 

halls, 
From London's galleries to San Carlo's 

walls! 



Thus shall he live whose more than mor- 
tal name 
Mocks with its ray the pallid torch of 

Fame ; 
So proudly lifted that it seems afar 
No earthly Pharos, but a heavenly star, 
Who, unconfined to Art's diurnal bound, 
Girds her whole zodiac in his flaming round, 
And leads the passions, like the orb that 

guides, 
From pole to pole, the palpitating tides! 



Though round the Muse the robe of song 
is thrown, 
Think not the poet lives in verse alone. 
Long ere the chisel of the sculptor taught 
The lifeless stone to mock the living thought ; 
Long ere the painter bade the canvas glow 
With every line the forms of beauty know; 
Long ere the iris of the Muses threw 
On every leaf its own celestial hue, 
In fable's dress the breath of genius poured, 
And warmed the shapes that later times 
adored. 

Untaught by Science how to forge the 

keys 
That loose the gates of Nature's mysteries; 
Unschooled by Faith, who, with her angel 

tread, 
Leads through the labyrinth with a single 

thread, 
His fancy, hovering round her guarded 

tower, 
Rained through its bars like Danae's golden 

shower. 

He spoke ; the sea-nymph answered from 

her cave; 
He called; the naiad left her mountain 

wave : 
He dreamed of beauty ; lo, amidst his dream, 
Narcissus, mirrored in the breathless stream, 
And night's chaste empress, in her bridal 

play, 
Laughed through the foliage where Endy- 

mion lay; 
And ocean dimpled, as the languid swell 
Kissed the red lip of Cytherea's shell: 
Of power, — Bellona swept the crimson 

field, 
And blue-eyed Pallas shook her Gorgon 

shield; 
O'er the hushed waves their mightier mon- 
arch drove, 
And Ida trembled to the tread of Jove ! 

So every grace that plastic language 
knows 
To nameless poets its perfection owes. 
The rough-hewn words to simplest thoughts 

confined 
Were cut and polished in their nicer mind; 
Caught on their edge, imagination's ray 
Splits into rainbows, shooting far away; — 



24 



EARLIER POEMS 



From sense to soul, from soul to sense, it 

flies, 
And through all nature links analogies; 
He who reads right will rarely look upon 
A better poet than his lexicon! 

There is a race which cold, ungenial skies 
Breed from decay, as fungous growths 

arise ; 
Though dying fast, yet springing fast again, 
Which still usurps an unsubstantial reign, 
With frames too languid for the charms of 

sense, 
And minds worn down with action too in- 
tense ; 
Tired of a world whose joys they never 

knew, 
Themselves deceived, yet thinking all un- 
true ; 
Scarce men without, and less than girls 

within, 
Sick of their life before its cares begin; — 
The dull disease, which drains their feeble 

hearts, 
To life's decay some hectic thrills imparts, 
And lends a force which, like the maniac's 

power, 
Pays with blank years the frenzy of an hour. 

And this is Genius! Say, does Heaven 
degrade 

The manly frame, for health, for action 
made? 

Break down the sinews, rack the brow 
with pains, 

Blanch the bright cheek and drain the pur- 
ple veins, 

To clothe the mind with more extended 
sway, 

Thus faintly struggling in degenerate clay ? 

No! gentle maid, too ready to admire, 
Though false its notes, the pale enthu- 
siast's lyre; 
If this be genius, though its bitter springs 
Glowed like the morn beneath Aurora's 

wings, 
Seek not the source whose sullen bosom 

feeds 
But fruitless flowers and dark, envenomed 
weeds. 

But, if so bright the dear illusion seems, 
Thou wouldst be partner of thy poet's 
dreams, 



And hang in rapture on his bloodless 

charms, 
Or die, like Raphael, in his angel arms, 
Go and enjoy thy blessed lot, — to share 
In Cowper's gloom or Chatterton's despair! 

Not such were they whom, wandering 

o'er the waves, 
I looked to meet, but only found their 

graves ; 
If friendship's smile, the better part of 

fame, 
Should lend my song the only wreath I 

claim, 
Whose voice would greet me with a 

sweeter tone, 
Whose living hand more kindly press my 

own, 
Than theirs, — could Memory, as her 

silent tread 
Prints the pale flowers that blossom o'er 

the dead, 
Those breathless lips, now closed in peace, 

restore, 
Or wake those pulses hushed to beat no 

more? 

Thou calm, chaste scholar ! I can see 

thee now, 
The first young laurels on thy pallid brow, 
O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down 
In graceful folds the academic gown, 
On thy curled lip the classic lines that 

taught 
How nice the mind that sculptured them 

with thought, 
And triumph glistening in the clear blue 

eye, 
Too bright to live, — but oh, too fair to 

die! 

And thou, dear friend, whom Science 

still deplores, 
And Love still mourns, on ocean-severed 

shores, 
Though the bleak forest twice has bowed 

with snow 
Since thou wast laid its budding leaves 

below, 
Thine image mingles with my closing 

strain, 
As when we wandered by the turbid Seine, 
Both blessed with hopes, which revelled, 

bright and free, 
On all we longed or all we dreamed to be ; 



POETRY 



25 



To thee the amaranth and the cypress Whose accents echo to the voice that 



fell, — 



One leap of Ocean scatters on the sand 



And I was spared to breathe this last fare- The quarried bulwarks of the loosening 



well: 

But lived there one in unremembered 

days. 
Or lives there still, who spurns the poet's 

bays, 
Whose fingers, dewy from Castalia's 

springs, 
Rest on the lyre, yet scorn to touch the 

strings ? 
Who shakes the senate with the silver tone 
The groves of Pindus might have sighed to 

own? 
Have such e'er been? Remember Can- 
ning's name! 
Do such still live? Let " Alaric's Dirge " 

proclaim! 

Immortal Art! where'er the rounded 
sky 
Bends o'er the cradle where thy children 

lie ' 
Their home is earth, their herald every 

tongue 



land ; 
One thrill of earth dissolves a century's 

toil 
Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the 

soil; 
One hill o'erflows, and cities sink below, 
Their marbles splintering in the lava's 

glow; 
But one sweet tone, scarce whispered to 

the air, 
From shore to shore the blasts of ages 

bear; 
One humble name, which oft, perchance, 

has borne 
The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's 

scorn, 
Towers o'er the dust of earth's forgotten 

graves, 
As once, emerging through the waste of 

waves, 
The rocky Titan, round whose shattered 

spear 
Coiled the last whirlpool of the drowning 

sphere ! 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



[An English and enlarged edition of Dr. 
Holmes's Poems followed the American edi- 
tion of 1836, and was furnished with a bio- 
graphical sketch of the poet, but the second 
American edition was copyrighted in 1848, and 
published nominally in 1849. It contained 
the poems already published and a further 
group, as here presented. The preface to the 
earlier volume was omitted, and the new edi- 
tion was introduced by a note headed " From 
a letter of the Author to the Publishers," 
from which the following passages are taken. 

" As these productions are to be given to the 
public again at your particular request, I must 
trust that you will make all proper explana- 
tions. I need hardly remind you that a part 
of them appeared in a volume published about 
a dozen years ago ; that when this volume had 
been some time out of print, another edition 
was printed, at your suggestion, in London, 
but I suppose sold principally to this country ; 
and that the present edition is published to 
please you rather than to gratify myself. You 
will, therefore, take the entire responsibility 
of the second and third appearances, except so 
far as my consent involved me in the transac- 
tions. 

" Let me remark, also, that it was only to 
suit your wishes that several copies of verses, 



which sound very much like school exercises, 
were allowed to remain unexpunged. If any- 
body takes the trouble to attack them, you 
may say that they belong to the department 
of ' Early ' or ' Juvenile ' Poems, and should 
be so ticketed. But stand up for the new 
verses, especially those added in this edition. 
Say that those two names, ' Terpsichore ' and 
' Urania,' may perhaps sound a little fantas- 
tic, but were merely intended as suggestive 
titles, and fall back upon Herodotus. Say 
that many of the lesser poems were written 
for meetings more or less convivial, and must 
of course show something like the fire-work 
frames on the morning of July 5th. If any 
objection is made to that bacchanalian song, 
say that the author entirely recedes from sev- 
eral of the sentiments contained in it, espe- 
cially that about strong drink being a natural 
want. But ask, if a few classical reminis- 
cences at a banquet may not be quite as like 
to keep out something worse, as to stand in 
the way of something better. 

" If anything pleasant should be said about 
' the new edition,' you may snip it out of the 
paper and save it for me. If contrary opinions 
are expressed, be so good as not to mark with 
brackets, carefully envelop, and send to me, as 
is the custom with many friends."] 



THE PILGRIM'S VISION 

In the hour of twilight shadows 

The Pilgrim sire looked out; 
He thought of the " bloudy Salvages " 

That lurked all round about, 
Of Wituwamet's pictured knife 

And Pecksuot's whooping shout; 
For the baby's limbs were feeble, 

Though his father's arms were stout. 

His home was a freezing cabin, 
Too bare for the hungry rat; 

Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, 
And bald enough of that; 

The hole that served for casement 
Was glazed with an ancient hat, 



And the ice was gently thawing 
From the log whereon he sat. 

Along the dreary landscape 

His eyes went to and fro, 
The trees all clad in icicles, 

The streams that did not flow; 
A sudden thought flashed o'er him, 

A dream of long ago, — 
He smote his leathern jerkin, 

And murmured, " Even so ! " 

Come hither, God-be-Glorified, 

And sit upon my knee; 
Behold the dream unfolding, 

Whereof I spake to thee 
By the winter's hearth in Leyden 

And on the stormy sea. 



THE PILGRIM'S VISION 



27 



True is the dream's beginning', — 
So may its ending be ! 

" I saw in the naked forest 

Our scattered remnant cast, 
A screen of shivering branches 

Between them and the blast ; 
The snow was falling round them, 

The dying fell as fast ; 
I looked to see them perish, 

AVhen lo, the vision passed. 

" Again mine eyes were opened; — 

The feeble had waxed strong, 
The babes had grown to sturdy men, 

The remnant was a throng; 
By shadowed lake and winding stream, 

And all the shores along, 
The howling demons quaked to hear 

The Christian's godly song. 

" They slept, the village fathers, 

B} r river, lake, and shore 
When far adown the steep of Time 

The vision rose once more : 
I saw along the winter snow 

A spectral column pour, 
And high above their broken ranks 

A tattered flag they bore. 

" Their Leader rode before them, 

Of bearing calm and high, 
The light of Heaven's own kindling 

Throned in his awful eye; 
These were a Nation's champions 

Her dread appeal to try. 
God for the right ! I faltered, 

And lo, the train passed by. 

" Once more ; — the strife is ended, 

The solemn issue tried, 
The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm 

Has helped our Israel's side; 
Gray stone and grassy hillock 

Tell where our martyrs died, 
But peaceful smiles the harvest, 

And stainless flows the tide. 

" A crash, as when some swollen cloud 
Cracks o'er the tangled trees ! 

With side to side, and spar to spar, 
Whose smoking decks are these ? 

I know Saint George's blood-red cross, 
Thou Mistress of the Seas, 



But what is she whose streaming bars 
Roll out before the breeze ? 

" Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, 

Whose thunders strive to quell 
The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, 

That pealed the Armada's knell ! 
The mist was cleared, — a wreath of stars 

Hose o'er the crimsoned swell, 
And, wavering from its haughty peak, 

The cross of England fell ! 

" O trembling Faith ! though dark the 
morn, 
A heavenly torch is thine ; 
While feebler races melt away, 

And paler orbs decline, 
Still shall the fiery pillar's ray 

Along thy pathway shine, 
To light the chosen tribe that sought 
This Western Palestine ! 

" I see the living tide roll on; 

It crowns with flaming towers 
The icy capes of Labrador, 

The Spaniard's 'land of flowers ' ! 
It streams beyond the splintered ridge 

That parts the northern showers; 
From eastern rock to sunset wave 

The Continent is ours ! " 

He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint, 

Then softly bent to cheer 
The Pilgrim-child, whose wasting face 

Was meekty turned to hear; 
And drew his toil-worn sleeve across 

To brush the manly tear 
From cheeks that never changed in woe, 

And never blanched in fear. 

The weary Pilgrim slumbers, 

His resting-place unknown ; 
His hands were crossed, his lips were 
closed, 

The dust was o'er him strown ; 
The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, 

Along the sod were blown; 
His mound has melted into earth, 

His memory lives alone. 

So let it live unfading, 

The memory of the dead, 
Long as the pale anemone 

Springs where their tears were shed, 



28 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



Or, raining in the summer's wind 


To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep 


In flakes of burning red, 


Her broad breast to the gale ; 


The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves 


And many a foresail, scooped and strained, 


The turf where once they bled! 


Shall break from yard and stay, 




Before this smoky wreath has stained 


Yea, when the frowning bulwarks 


The rising mist of day. 


That guard this holy strand 




Have sunk beneath the trampling surge 


Hark ! hark ! I hear yon whistling shroud, 


In beds of sparkling sand, 


I see yon quivering mast; 


While in the waste of ocean 


The black throat of the hunted cloud 


One hoary rock shall stand, 


Is panting forth the blast! 


Be this its latest legend, — 


An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, 


Here was the Pilgrim's land ! 


The giant surge shall fling 




His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, 




White as the sea-bird's wing ! 


THE STEAMBOAT 






Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; 


See how yon flaming herald treads 


Nor wind nor wave shall tire 


The ridged and rolling waves, 


Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap 


As, crashing o'er their crested heads, 


With floods of living fire; 


She bows her surly slaves ! 


Sleep on, and, when the morning light 


With foam before and fire behind, 


Streams o'er the shining bay, 


She rends the clinging sea, 


Oh think of those for whom the night 


That flies before the roaring wind, 


Shall never wake in day ! 


Beneath her hissing lee. 




The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, 


LEXINGTON 


With heaped and glistening bells, 




Falls round her fast, in ringing showers, 


Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was 


With every wave that swells ; 


creeping, 


And, burning o'er the midnight deep, 


Bright on the dewy buds glistened the 


In lurid fringes thrown, 


sun, 


The living gems of ocean sweep 


When from his couch, while his children 


Along her flashing zone. 


were sleeping, 




Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his 


With clashing wheel and lifting keel, 


gun. 


And smoking torch on high, 


Waving her golden veil 


When winds are loud and billows reel, 


Over the silent dale, 


She thunders foaming by; 


Blithe looked the morning 011 cottage and 


When seas are silent and serene, 


spire ; 


With even beam she glides, 


Hushed was his parting sigh, 


The sunshine glimmering through the green 


While from his noble eye 


That skirts her gleaming sides. 


Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. 


Now, like a wild nymph, far apart 


On the smooth green where the fresh leaf 


She veils her shadowy form, 


is springing 


The beating of her restless heart 


Calmly the first-born of glory have met ; 


Still sounding through the storm; 


Hark ! the death-volley around them is 


Now answers, like a courtly dame, 


ringing ! 


The reddening surges o'er, 


Look! with their life-blood the young 


With flying scarf of spangled flame, 


grass is wet! 


The Pharos of the shore. 


Faint is the feeble breath, 




Murmuring low in death, 


To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, 


" Tell to our sons how their fathers have 


Who trims his narrowed sail; 


died;" 



ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL 



29 



Nerveless the iron band. 
Raised for its native land, 
Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. 

Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, 
From their far hamlets the yeomanry 
come ; 
As through the storm-clouds the thunder- 
burst rolling, 
Circles the beat of the musteriug drum. 
Fast on the soldier's path 
Darken the waves of wrath, — 
Long have thev gathered and loud shall 
they fall; 
Red glares the mnsket's flash, 
Sharp rings the rifle's crash, 
Blazing and clanging from thicket and 
wall. 

Gayly the plume of the horseman was dan- 
cing, 
Never to shadow his cold brow again; 
Proudly at morning the war-steed was 
prancing, 
Reeking and panting he droops on the 
rein ; 
Pale is the lip of scorn, 
Voiceless the trumpet horn, 
Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on 
high; 
Many a belted breast 
Low on the turf shall rest 
Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed 

Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind 
is raving, 
Rocks where the weary floods murmur 
and wail, 
Wilds where the fern by the furrow is 
waving, 
Reeled with the echoes that rode on the 
gale; 
Far as the tempest thrills 
Over the darkened hills, 
Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, 
Roused by the tyrant band, 
AVoke all the mighty land, 
Girded for battle, from mountain to main. 

Green be the graves where her martyrs are 

lying! 
Shroudless and tombless they sunk to 

their rest, 
While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying 



Wraps the proud eagle they roused 
from his nest. 
Borne on her Northern pine, 
Long o'er the foaming brine 
Spread her broad banner to storm and to 
sun; 
Heaven keep her ever free, 
Wide as o'er land and sea 
Floats the fair emblem her heroes have 
won! 



ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL 

This " punch-bowl ' ' was, according to old 
family tradition, a candle-cup. It is a massive 
piece of silver, its cherubs and other orna- 
ments of coarse repousse" -work, and has two 
handles like a loving-cup, by which it was 
held, or passed from guest to guest. 

This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of 

good old times, 
Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry 

Christmas times; 
They were a free and jovial race, but 

honest, brave, and true, 
Who dipped their ladle in the punch when 

this old bowl was new. 

A Spanish galleon brought the bar, — so 

runs the ancient tale; 
'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, 

whose arm was like a flail; 
And now and then between the strokes, for 

fear his strength should fail, 
He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of 

good old Flemish ale. 

'T was purchased by an English squire to 

please his loving dame, 
Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a 

longing for the same; 
And oft as on the ancient stock another 

twig was found, 
'T was filled with caudle spiced and hot, 

and handed smoking round. 

But, changing hands, it reached at length a 
Puritan divine, 

Who used to follow Timothy, and take a 
little w T ine, 

But hated punch and prelacy; and so it 
was, perhaps, 

He went to Leyden. where he found con- 
venticles and schnapps. 



3° 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND i, 



And then, of course, you know what 's 

next: it left the Dutchman's shore 
With those that in the Mayflower came, — 

a hundred souls and more, — 
Along with all the furniture, to fill their 

new abodes, — 
To judge by what is still on hand, at least 

a hundred loads. 

'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night 

was closing dim, 
When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, 

and filled it to the brim; 
The little Captain stood and stirred the 

posset with his sword, 
And all his sturdy men-at-arms were 

ranged about the board. 

He poured the fiery Hollands in, — the 

man that never feared, — 
He took a long and solemn draught, and 

wiped his yellow beard; 
And one by one the musketeers — the men 

that fought and prayed — 
All drank as 't were their mother's milk, 

and not a man afraid. 

That night, affrighted from his nest, the 

screaming eagle flew, 
He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the 

soldier's wild halloo; 
And there the sachem learned the rule he 

taught to kith and kin : 
" Run from the white man when you find 

he smells of Hollands gin ! " 

A hundred years, and fifty more, had 

spread their leaves and snows, 
A thousand rubs had flattened down each 

little cherub's nose, 
When once again the bowl was filled, but 

not in mirth or joy, — 
'Twas mingled by a mother's hand to 

cheer her parting boy. 

Drink, John, she said, 't will do you good, 

— poor child, you '11 never bear 
This working in the dismal trench, out in 

the midnight air; 
And if — God bless me ! — you were hurt, 

't would keep away the chill. 
So John did drink, — and well he wrought 

that night at Bunker's Hill ! 



I tell you, there was generous warmth in 

good old English cheer; 
I tell you, 't was a pleasant thought to 

bring its symbol here. 
'T is but the fool that loves excess; hast 

thou a drunken soul ? 
Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my 

silver bowl ! 

I love the memory of the past, — its 

pressed yet fragrant flowers, — 
The moss that clothes its broken walls, the 

ivy on its towers; 
Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed, — my 

eyes grow moist and dim, 
To think of all the vanished joys that 

danced around its brim. 

Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it 

straight to me; 
The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er 

the liquid be; 
And may the cherubs on its face protect 

me from the sin 
That dooms one to those dreadful words, 

— " My dear, where have you 

been ? " 



A SONG 

FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 
HARVARD COLLEGE, 1 836 

This song, -which I had the temerity to 
sing myself (felix audacia, Mr. Franklin Dex- 
ter had the goodness to call it), was sent in 
a little too late to be printed with the official 
account of the celebration. It was Avritten 
at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who 
thought the popular tune " The Poacher's 
Song " would be a good model for a lively 
ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admir- 
able Latin song to be found in the record of 
the meeting. 

When the Puritans came over 

Our hills and swamps to clear, 
The woods were full of catamounts, 

And Indians red as deer, 
With tomahawks and scalping-knives, 

That make folks' heads look queer ; 
Oh the ship from England used to bring 

A hundred wigs a year ! 



THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG 



3i 



The crows came cawing through the air 

To pluck the Pilgrims' corn, 
The bears came snufting round the door 

Whene'er a babe was born, 
The rattlesnakes were bigger round 

Than the but of the old rani's horn 
The deacon blew at meeting time 

On every " Sabbath " morn. 

But soon they knocked the wigwams 
down, 

And pine-tree trunk and limb 
Began to sprout among the leaves 

In shape of steeples slim; 
And out the little wharves were stretched 

Along the ocean's rim, 
And up the little school-house shot 

To keep the boys in trim. 

And when at length the College rose, 

The sachem cocked his eye 
At every tutor's meagre ribs 

Whose coat-tails whistled by: 
But when the Greek and Hebrew words 

Came tumbling from his jaws, 
The copper-colored children all 

Ran screaming to the squaws. 

And who was on the Catalogue 

When college was begun ? 
Two nephews of the President, 

And the Professor's son ; 
(They turned a little Indian by, 

As brown as any bun ;) 
Lord ! how the seniors knocked about 

The freshman class of one ! 

They had not then the dainty things 

That commons now afford, 
But succotash and hominy 

Were smoking on the board ; 
They did not rattle round in gigs, 

Or dash in long-tailed blues, 
But always on Commencement days 

The tutors blacked their shoes. 

God bless the ancient Puritans ! 

Their lot was hard enough; 
But honest hearts make iron arms, 

Aud tender maids are tough ; 
So love and faith have formed and fed 

Our true-born Yankee stuff, 
And keep the kernel in the shell 

The British found so rough ! 



THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG 

The island referred to is a domain of 
princely proportions, which has long been the 
seat of a generous hospitality. Naushon is its 
old Indian name. William Swain, Esq., com- 
monly known as " the Governor," was the pro- 
prietor of it at the time when this song was 
written. Mr. John M. Forbes is his worthy 
successor in territorial rights and as a hospit- 
able entertainer. The Island Book has been 
the recipient of many poems from visitors and 
friends of the owners of the old mansion. [In 
The Autocrat, section ii., is an animated account 
of Naushon, followed by a poem, Sun and 
Shadow, written there.] 

No more the summer floweret charms, 

The leaves will soon be sere, 
And Autumn folds his jewelled arms 

Around the dying year ; 
So, ere the waning seasons claim 

Our leafless groves awhile, 
With golden wine and glowing flame 

We '11 crown our lonely isle. 

Once more the merry voices sound 

Within the antlered hall, 
And long and loud the baying hounds 

Return the hunter's call ; 
And through the woods, and o'er the hill, 

And far along the bay, 
The driver's horn is sounding shrill, — 

Up, sportsmen, and away ! 

No bars of steel or walls of stone 

Our little empire bound, 
But, circling with his azure zone, 

The sea runs foaming round ; 
The whitening wave, the purpled skies, 

The blue and lifted shore, 
Braid with their dim and blending dyes 

Our wide horizon o'er. 

And who will leave the grave debate 

That shakes the smoky town, 
To rule amid our island-state, 

And wear our oak-leaf crown ? 
And who will be awhile content 

To hunt our woodland game, 
And leave the vulgar pack that scent 

The reeking track of fame ? 

Ah, who that shares in toils like these 
Will sigh not to prolong 



3* 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND l8 4§ 



Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees, 
Our nights of mirth and song ? 

Then leave the dust of noisy streets, 
Ye outlaws of the wood, 

And follow through his green retreats 
Your noble Robin Hood. 



DEPARTED DAYS 

Yes, dear departed, cherished days, 

Could Memory's hand restore 
Your morning light, your evening rays, 

From Time's gray urn once more, 
Then might this restless heart be still, 

This straining eye might close, 
And Hope her fainting pinions fold, 

While the fair phantoms rose. 

But, like a child in ocean's arms, 

We strive against the stream, 
Each moment farther from the shore 

Where life's young fountains gleam ; 
Each moment fainter wave the fields, 

And wider rolls the sea; 
The mist grows dark, — the sun goes 
down, — 

Day breaks, — and where are we ? 



THE ONLY DAUGHTER 

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE 

They bid me strike the idle strings, 

As if my summer days 
Had shaken sunbeams from their wings 

To warm my autumn lays ; 
They bring to me their painted urn, 

As if it were not time 
To lift my gauntlet and to spurn 

The lists of boyish rhyme ; 
And were it not that I have still 

Some weakness in my heart 
That clings around my stronger will 

And pleads for gentler art, 
Perchance I had not turned away 

The thoughts grown tame with toil, 
To cheat this lone and pallid ray, 

That wastes the midnight oil. 

Alas ! with every year I feel 
Some roses leave my brow ; 

Too young for wisdom's tardy seal, 
Too old for garlands now. 



Yet, while the dewy breath of spring 

Steals o'er the tingling air, 
And spreads and fans each emerald wing 

The forest soon shall wear, 
How bright the opening year would seem, 

Had I one look like thine 
To meet me when the morning beam 

Unseals these lids of mine ! 
Too long I bear this lonely lot, 

That bids my heart run wild 
To press the lips that love me not, 

To clasp the stranger's child. 

How oft beyond the dashing seas, 

Amidst those royal bowers, 
Where danced the lilacs in the breeze, 

And swung the chestnut-flowers, 
I wandered like a wearied slave 

Whose morning task is done, 
To watch the little hands that gave 

Their whiteness to the sun; 
To revel in the bright young eyes, 

Whose lustre sparkled through 
The sable fringe of Southern skies 

Or gleamed in Saxon blue ! 
How oft I heard another's name 

Called in some truant's tone ; 
Sweet accents ! which I longed to claim, 

To learn and lisp my own ! 

Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed 

The ringlets of the child, 
Are folded on the faithful breast 

Where first he breathed and smiled; 
Too oft the clinging arms untwine, 

The melting lips forget, 
And darkness veils the bridal shrine 

Where wreaths and torches met ; 
If Heaven but leaves a single thread 

Of Hope's dissolving chain, 
Even when her parting plumes are spread, 

It bids them fold again; 
The cradle rocks beside the tomb; 

The cheek now changed and chill 
Smiles on us in the morning bloom 

Of one that loves us still. 

Sweet image ! I have done thee wrong 

To claim this destined lay ; 
The leaf that asked an idle song 

Must bear my tears away. 
Yet in thy memory shouldst thou keep 

This else forgotten strain, 
Till years have taught thine eyes to weep, 

And flattery's voice is vain ; 



LINES 



Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest, 

Like the long-wandering dove, 
Thy weary heart may faint for rest, 

As mine, on changeless love ; 
And while these sculptured lines retrace 

The hours now dancing by, 
This vision of thy girlish grace 

May cost thee, too, a sigh. 



SONG 

WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO 
CHARLES DICKENS BY THE YOUNG 
MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY I, 1 842 

The stars their early vigils keep, 

The silent hours are near, 
When drooping eyes forget to weep, — 

Yet still we linger here ; 
And what — the passing churl may ask — 

Can claim such wondrous power, 
That Toil forgets his wonted task, 

And Love his promised hour ? 

The Irish harp no longer thrills, 

Or breathes a fainter tone ; 
The clarion blast from Scotland's hills, 

Alas ! no more is blown ; 
And Passion's burning lip bewails 

Her Harold's wasted fire, 
Still lingering o'er the dust that veils 

The Lord of England's lyre. 

But grieve not o'er its broken strings, 

Nor think its soul hath died, 
While yet the lark at heaven's gate 
sings, 

As once o'er Avon's side ; 
While gentle summer sheds her bloom, 

And dewy blossoms wave, 
Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb 

And Nelly's nameless grave. 

Thou glorious island of the sea ! 

Though wide the wasting flood 
That parts our distant land from thee, 

We claim thy generous blood; 
Nor o'er thy far horizon springs 

One hallowed star of fame, 
But kindles, like an angel's wings, 

Our western skies in flame ! 



LINES 

RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE, 
PITTSFIELD, MASS., AUGUST 23, 1844 

[Before reading- these Lines, the poet spoke 
as follows : 

" One of my earliest recollections is of an 
annual pilgrimage made by my parents to the 
west. The young horse was brought up, fatted 
by a week's rest and high feeding, prancing and 
caracoling to the door. It came to the corner 
and was soon over the western hills. He was 
gone a fortnight ; and one afternoon — it al- 
ways seems to me it was a sunny afternoon — 
we saw an equipage crawling from the west 
toward the old homestead ; the young horse, 
who set out fat and prancing, worn thin and 
reduced by a long journey — the chaise cov- 
ered with dust, and all speaking of a terrible 
crusade, a formidable pilgrimage. Winter- 
evening stories told me where — to Berkshire, 
to the borders of New York, to the old domain, 
owned so long that there seemed a kind of he- 
reditary love for it. Many years passed away, 
and I travelled down the beautiful Rhine. I 
wished to see the equally beautiful Hudson. 
I found myself at Albany ; a few hours' ride 
brought me to Pittsfield, and I went to the 
little spot, the scene of this pilgrimage — a 
mansion — and found it surrounded by a beau- 
tiful meadow, through which the winding river 
made its course in a thousand fantastic curves ; 
the mountains reared their heads around it, 
the blue air which makes our city-pale cheeks 
again to deepen with the hue of health, cours- 
ing about it pure and free. I recognized it as 
the scene of the annual pilgrimage. Since then 
I have made an annual visit to it. 

" In 1735, Hon. Jacob Wendell, my grand- 
father in the maternal line, bought a township 
not then laid out — the township of Poontoo- 
suck — and that little spot which we still hold 
is the relic of twenty-four thousand acres of 
baronial territory. When I say this, no feel- 
ing which can be the subject of ridicule ani- 
mates my bosom. I know too well that the 
hills and rocks outlast our families. I know 
we fall upon the places we claim, as the leaves 
of the forest fall, and as passed the soil from 
the hands of the original occupants into the 
hands of my immediate ancestors, I know it 
must pass from me and mine ; and yet with 
pleasure and pride I feel I can take every in- 
habitant by the hand and say, If I am not a 
son or a grandson, or even a nephew of this 
fair county, I am at least allied to it by hered- 
itary relation."] 



34 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



Come back to your mother, ye children, 

for shame, 
Who have wandered like truants for riches 

or fame ! 
With a smile on her face, and a sprig in 

her cap, 
She calls you to feast from her bountiful 

lap. 

Come out from your alleys, your courts, 
and your lanes, 

And breathe, like young eagles, the air of 
our plains ; 

Take a whin from our fields, and your ex- 
cellent wives 

Will declare it 's all nonsense insuring your 
lives. 

Come you of the law, who can talk, if you 

please, 
Till the man in the moon will allow it 's a 

cheese, 
And leave "the old lady, that never tells 

lies," 
To sleep with her handkerchief over her 

eyes. 

Ye healers of men, for a moment decline 
Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac 

line ; 
While you shut up your turnpike, your 

neighbors can go 
The old roundabout road to the regions 

below. 

You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of 

pens, 
And whose head is an ant-hill of units and 

tens, 
Though Plato denies you, we welcome you 

still 
As a featherless biped, in spite of your 

quill. 

Poor drudge of the city ! how happy he 

feels, 
With the burs on his legs and the grass at 

his heels ! 
No dodger behind, his bandannas to share, 
No constable grumbling, " You must n't 

walk there ! " 

In yonder green meadow, to memory dear, 
He slaps a mosquito and brushes a tear; 



The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms 

and shoots, 
He breathes but one sigh for his youth and 

his boots. 

There stands the old school-house, hard by 

the old church; 
That tree at its side had the flavor of 

birch ; 
Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile 

tricks, 
Though the prairie of youth had so many 

" big licks." 

By the side of yon river he weeps and he 

slumps, 
The boots fill with water, as if they were 

pumps, 
Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his 

bed, 
With a glow in his heart and a cold in his 

head. 

'T is past, — he is dreaming, — I see him 

again ; 
The ledger returns as by legerdemain; 
His neckcloth is damp with an easterly 

flaw, 
And he holds in his fingers an omnibus 

straw. 

He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy 
gale, 

That the straw is a rose from his dear na- 
tive vale ; 

And murmurs, unconscious of space and of 
time, 

" A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it prime ! " 

Oh, what are the prizes we perish to 

win 
To the first little " shiner " we caught with 

a pin ! 
No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes 
As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial 

pies ! 

Then come from all parties and parts to 

our feast ; 
Though not at the " Astor," we '11 give you 

at least 
A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass, 
And the best of old — water — at nothing 

a glass. 



NUX POSTCCENATICA 



35 



NUX POSTCCENATICA 

I WAS sittiug with niy microscope, upon my 

parlor rug, 
With a very heavy quarto and a very lively 

bug ; 
The true bug had been organized with only 

two antennse, 
But the humbug in the copperplate would 

have them twice as many. 

And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the 

emptiness of art, 
How we take a fragment for the whole, 

and call the whole a part, 
When I heard a heavy footstep that was 

loud enough for two, 
And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, 

" How d' ye do ? " 

He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid 

flesh and bone ; 
He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was 

twenty stone; 
(It 's odd how hats expand their brims as 

riper years invade, 
As if when life had reached its noon it 

wanted them for shade !) 

I lost my focus, — dropped my book, — 
the bug, who was a flea, 

At once exploded, and commenced experi- 
ments on me. 

They have a certain heartiness that fre- 
quently appalls, — 

Those mediaeval gentlemen in semilunar 
smalls ! 

" My boy," he said, (colloquial ways, — the 

vast, broad-hatted man,) 
" Come dine with us on Thursday next, — 

you must, you know you can; 
We 're going to have a roaring time, with 

lots of fun and noise, 
Distinguished guests, et cetera, the Judge, 

and all the boys." 

Not so, — I said, — my temporal bones are 

showing pretty clear. 
It 's time to stop, — just look and see that 

hair above this ear; 
My golden days are more than spent, — 

and, what is very strange, 
If these are real silver hairs, I 'm getting 

lots of change. 



Besides — my prospects — don't you know 
that people won't employ 

A man that wrongs his manliness by laugh- 
ing like a boy ? 

And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds 
upon a shoot, 

As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish 
at its root ? 

It 's a very fine reflection, when you 're 

etching out a smile 
On a copperplate of faces that would 

stretch at least a mile, 
That, what with sneers from enemies and 

cheapening shrugs of friends, 
It will cost you all the earnings that a 

month of labor lends ! 

It 's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you 're 
screwing out a laugh, 

That your very next year's income is dimin- 
ished by a half, 

And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus 
may go, 

And the baby's milk is watered that your 
Helicon may flow ! 



No 



but 



the joke has been a good one, 
I 'm getting fond of quiet, 

And I don't like deviations from my cus- 
tomary diet ; 

So I think I will not go with you to hear 
the toasts and speeches, 

But stick to old Montgomery Place, and 
have some pig and peaches. 

The fat man answered : Shut your mouth, 

and hear the genuine creed ; 
The true essentials of a feast are only fun 

and feed ; 
The force that wheels the planets round 

delights in spinning tops, 
And that young earthquake t' other day 

was great at shaking props. 

I tell you what, philosopher, if all the lon- 
gest heads 

That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretch- 
ing on their beds 

Were round one great mahogany, I 'd beat 
those fine old folks 

With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and 
twenty clever jokes ! 



36 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



Why, if Columbus should be there, the 
company would beg 

He 'd show that little trick of his of bal- 
ancing the egg ! 

Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solo- 
mon to Salmon, 

And Roger Bacon be a bore, and Francis 
Bacon gammon ! 

And as for all the " patronage " of all the 

clowns and boors 
That squint their little narrow eyes at any 

freak of yours, 
Do leave them to your prosier friends, — 

such fellows ought to die 
When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac 

so high ! 

And so I come, — like Lochinvar, to tread 
a single measure, — 

To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar- 
plum of pleasure, 

To enter for the cup of glass that 's run 
for after dinner, 

Which yields a single sparkling draught, 
then breaks and cuts the winner. 

Ah, that 's the way delusion comes, — a 
glass of old Madeira, 

A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by 
Jane or Sarah, 

And down go vows and promises without 
the slightest question 

If eating words won't compromise the or- 
gans of digestion! 

And yet, among my native shades, beside 

my nursing mother, 
Where every stranger seems a friend, and 

every friend a brother, 
I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er 

me stealing, — 
The warm, champagny, old-particular, 

brandy-punchy feeling. 

We 're all alike ; — Vesuvius flings the sco- 
riae from his fountain, 

But down they come in volleying rain back 
to the burning mountain; 

We leave, like those volcanic stones, our 
precious Alma Mater, 

But will keep dropping in again to see the 
dear old crater. 



VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER 

PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 1 844 

I was thinking last night, as I sat in the 

cars, 
With the charmingest prospect of cinders 

and stars, 
Next Thursday is — bless me! — how hard 

it will be, 
If that cannibal president calls upon me ! 

There is nothing on earth that he will not 

devour, 
From a tutor in seed to a freshman in 

flower ; 
No sage is too gray, and no youth is too 

green, 
And you can't be too plump, though you 're 

never too lean. 

While others enlarge on the boiled and the 

roast, 
He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast, 
Or catches some doctor, quite tender and 

young, 
And basely insists on a bit of his tongue. 

Poor victim, prepared for his classical 

spit, 
With a stuffing of praise and a basting of 

wit, 
You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle 

your brow, 
But you 're up on your legs, and you 're in 

for it now. 

Oh, think of your friends, — they are wait- 
ing to hear 

These jokes that are thought so remark- 
ably queer; 

And all the Jack Homers of metrical buns 

Are prying and fingering to pick out the 
puns. 

Those thoughts which, like chickens, will 

always thrive best 
When reared by the heat of the natural 

nest, 
Will perish if hatched from their embryo 

dream 
In the mist and the glow of convivial steam. 



A MODEST REQUEST 



■7 



Oh pardon me, then, if I meekly retire, 
With a very small flash of ethereal fire ; 
No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer 

match, 
If tho fix does not follow the primitive 

scratch. 

Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly 

the while, 
With your lips double-reefed in a snug 

little smile, 
I leave you two fables, both drawn from 

the deep, — 
The shells you can drop, but the pearls you 

may keep. 

The fish called the Flounder, perhaps 

you may know, 
Has one side for use and another for 

show; 
One side for the public, a delicate brown, 
And one that is white, which he always 

keeps down. 

A very young flounder, the flattest of 

flats, 
(And they 're none of them thicker than 

opera hats,) 
Was speaking more freely than charity 

taught 
Of a friend and relation that just had been 

caught. 

" My ! what an exposure ! just see what a 

sight ! 
I blush for my race, — he is showing his 

white ! 
Such spinning and wriggling, — why, what 

does he wish ? 
How painfully small to respectable fish ! " 

Then said an old Sculpin, — " My free- 
dom excuse, 

You 're playing the cobbler with holes in 
your shoes; 

Your brown side is up, — but just wait till 
you 're tried 

And you '11 find that all flounders are 
white on one side." 

There 's a slice near the Pickerel's pecto- 
ral fins, 

Where the thorax leaves off and the venter 
begins, 



Which his brother, survivor of fish-hooks 

and lines, 
Though fond of his family, never declines. 

He loves his relations; he feels they '11 be 

missed ; 
But that one little tidbit he cannot resist; 
So your bait may be swallowed, no matter 

how fast, 
For you catch your next fish with a piece 

of the last. 

And thus, O survivor, whose merciless 
fate 

Is to take the next hook with the presi- 
dent's bait, 

You are lost while you snatch from the 
end of his line 

The morsel he rent from this bosom of 
mine ! 



A MODEST REQUEST 

COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE DINNER AT 
PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION 

Scene, — a back parlor in a certain square, 
Or court, or lane, — in short, no matter 

where ; 
Time, — early morning, dear to simple 

souls 
Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked 

rolls; 
Persons, — take pity on this telltale blush, 
That, like the JEthiop, whispers, "Hush, 

oh hush ! " 

Delightful scene ! where smiling comfort 
broods, 

Nor business frets, nor anxious care in- 
trudes ; 

si sic omnia ! were it ever so ! 

But what is stable in this world below ? 

Medio efonte, — Virtue has her faults, — 

The clearest fountains taste of Epsom 
salts ; 

We snatch the cup and lift to drain it 

d r y> — 

Its central dimple holds a drowning fly ! 
Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial 

streams, 
But stronger augers pierce its thickest 

beams ; 



38 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, 
Can keep out death, the postman, or the 

bore. 
Oh for a world where peace and silence 

reign, 
And blunted dulness terebrates in vain ! 
— The door-bell jingles, — enter Richard 

Fox, 
And takes this letter from his leathern box. 

" Dear Sir, — 

In writing on a former day, 
One little matter I forgot to say; 
I now inform you in a single line, 
On Thursday next our purpose is to dine. 
The act of feeding, as you understand, 
Is but a fraction of the work in hand; 
Its nobler half is that ethereal meat 
The papers call 'the intellectual treat; ' 
Songs, speeches, toasts, around the festive 

board 
Drowned in the juice the College pumps 

afford ; 
For only water flanks our knives and 

forks, 
So, sink or float, we swim without the 

corks. 
Yours is the art, by native genius taught, 
To clothe in eloquence the naked thought; 
Yours is the skill its music to prolong 
Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous 

song; 
Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line 
That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine ; 
And since success your various gifts at- 
tends, 
We — that is, I and all your numerous 

friends — 
Expect from you — your single self a 

host — 
A speech, a song, excuse me, and a toast; 
Nay, not to haggle on so small a claim, 
A few of each, or several of the same. 
(Signed), Yours, most truly, " 

No! my sight must fail, — 
If that ain't Judas on the largest scale ! 
Well, this is modest; — nothing else than 

that ? 
My coat ? my boots ? my pantaloons ? my 

hat ? 
My stick ? my gloves ? as well as all my 

wits, 
Learning and linen, — everything that 

fits! 



Jack, said my lady, is it grog you '11 try, 
Or punch, or toddy, if perhaps you're 

dry ? 
Ah, said the sailor, though I can't refuse, 
You know, my lady, 't ain't for me to 

choose ; 
I '11 take the grog to finish off my lunch, 
And drink the toddy while you mix the 

punch. 



The Speech. (The speaker, rising to be 

seen, 
Looks very red, because so very green.) 
I rise — I rise — with unaffected fear, 
(Louder ! — speak louder ! — who the 

deuce can hear ?) 
I rise — I said — with undisguised dis- 
may— 

— Such are my feelings as I rise, I say ! 
Quite unprepared to face this learned 

throng, 
Already gorged with eloquence and song ; 
Around my view are ranged on either 

hand 
The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land ; 
" Hands that the rod of empire might have 

swayed " 
Close at my elbow stir their lemonade ; 
Would- you like Homer learn to write and 

speak, 
That bench is groaning with its weight of 

Greek; 
Behold the naturalist who in his teens 
Found six new species in a dish of greens; 
And lo, the master in a statelier walk, 
Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of 

chalk ; 
And there the linguist, who by common 

roots 
Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's 

shoots, — 
How Shem's proud children reared the 

Assyrian piles, 
While Ham's were scattered through the 

Sandwich Isles ! 

— Fired at the thought of all the present 

shows, 
My kindling fancy down the future flows : 
I see the glory of the coming days 
O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming 

rays ; 
Near and more near the radiant morning 

draws 
In living lustre (rapturous applause) ; 



A MODEST REQUEST 



39 



From east to west the blazing- heralds run, 
Loosed from the chariot of the ascending 

sun, 
Through the long vista of uncounted years 
In cloudless splendor (three tremendous 

cheers). 
My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, 
Sees a new advent of the age of gold; 
While o'er the scene new generations press, 
New heroes rise the coming time to bless, — 
Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, 
Dined without forks and never heard of 

soap, — 
Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel 

brings, . 
Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings, 
Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style, — 
But genuine articles, the true Carlyle ; 
AVhile far on high the blazing orb shall 

shed 
Its central light on Harvard's holy head, 
And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled 
Here in the focus of the new-born world ! 
The speaker stops, and, trampling down 

the pause, 
Roars through the hall the thunder of ap- 
plause, 
One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs ! 
One whirlwind chaos of insane Hurrahs ! 



The Song. But this demands a briefer 

line, — 
A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine; 
Long metre answers for a common song, 
Though common metre does not answer 

long. 

She came beneath the forest dome 

To seek its peaceful shade, 
An exile from her ancient home, 

A poor, forsaken maid; 
No banner, flaunting high above, 

No blazoned cross, she bore ; 
One holy book of light and love 

Was all her worldly store. 

The dark brown shadows passed away, 

And wider spread the green, 
And where the savage used to stray 

The rising mart was seen : 
So, when the laden winds had brought 

Their showers of golden rain, 
Her lap some precious gleanings caught, 

Like Ruth's amid the grain. 



But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled 

Among the baser churls, 
To see her ankles red with gold, 

Her forehead white with pearls. 
; "Who gave to thee the glittering bands 

That lace thine azure veins ? 
Who bade thee lift those snow-white 
hands 
We bound in gilded chains ? " 

These are the gems my children gave," 

The stately dame replied; 
The wise, the gentle, and the brave, 

I nurtured at my side. 
If envy still your bosom stings, 

Take back their rims of gold; 
My sons will melt their wedding-rings, 

And give a hundred-fold ! " 



The Toast. Oh tell me, ye who thought- 
less ask 

Exhausted nature for a threefold task, 

In wit or pathos if one share remains, 

A safe investment for an ounce of brains ! 

Hard is the job to launch the desperate 
pun, 

A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. 

Turned by the current of some stronger 
wit 

Back from the object that you mean to 
hit, 

Like the strange missile which the Austra- 
lian throws, 

Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the 
nose. 

One vague inflection spoils the whole with 
doubt, 

One trivial letter ruins all, left out; 

A knot can choke a felon into clay, 

A not will save him, spelt without the k; 

The smallest word has some unguarded 
spot, 

And danger lurks in i without a dot. 

Thus great Achilles, who had shown his 

zeal 
In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel; 
Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood 

doused, 
Had saved his bacon had his feet been 

soused ! 
Accursed heel that killed a hero stout ! 
Oh, had your mother known that you were 

out, 



40 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND ii 



Death had not entered at the trifling part 
That still defies the small chirurgeon's art 
With corns and bunions, — not the glo- 
rious John, 
Who wrote the book we all have pondered 

on, 
But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose, 
To " Pilgrim's Progress " unrelenting foes ! 



A health, unmingled with the reveller's 
wine, 

To him whose title is indeed divine; 

Truth's sleepless watchman on her mid- 
night tower, 

Whose lamp burns brightest when the 
tempests lower. 

On, who can tell with what a leaden flight 

Drag the long watches of his weary night, 

While at his feet the hoarse and blinding- 
gale 

Strews the torn wreck and bursts the 
fragile sail, 

When stars have faded, when the wave is 
dark, 

When rocks and sands embrace the foun- 
dering bark ! 

But still he pleads with unavailing cry, 

Behold the light, O wanderer, look or die ! 

A health, fair Themis ! Would the en- 
chanted vine 
Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup 

of thine ! 
If Learning's radiance fill thy modern 

court, 
Its glorious sunshine streams through 

Blackstone's port ! 
Lawyers are thirsty, and their clients 

too, — 
Witness at least, if memory serve me true, 
Those old tribunals, famed for dusty suits, 
Where men sought justice ere they brushed 

their boots; 
And what can match, to solve a learned 

doubt, 
The warmth within that comes from " cold 

without " ? 

Health to the art whose glory is to give 
The crowning boon that makes it life to 

live. 
Ask not her home; — the rock where 

nature flings 
Her arctic lichen, *ast of living things ; 



The gardens, fragrant with the orient's 

balm, 
From the low jasmine to the star-like 

palm, 
Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves, 
And yield their tribute to her wandering 

slaves. 
Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil, 
The tear of suffering tracks the path of 

toil, 
There, in the anguish of his fevered hours, 
Her gracious finger points to healing 

flowers ; 
Where the lost felon steals away to die, 
Her soft hand waves before his closing 

eye; 
Where hunted misery finds his darkest 

lair, 
The midnight taper shows her kneeling 

there ! 
Virtue, — the guide that men and nations 

own; 
And Law, — the bulwark that protects her 

throne ; 
And Health, — to all its happiest charm 

that lends; 
These and their servants, man's untiring 

friends : 
Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself 

lets fall, 
In one fair bumper let us toast them all ! 



THE PARTING WORD 

I must leave thee, lady sweet ! 
Months shall waste before we meet; 
Winds are fair and sails are spread, 
Anchors leave their ocean bed; 
Ere this shining day grow dark, 
Skies shall gird my shoreless bark. 
Through thy tears, O lady mine, 
Read thy lover's parting line. 

When the first sad sun shall set, 
Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet; 
When the morning star shall rise, 
Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes; 
When the second sun goes down, 
Thou more tranquil shalt be grown, 
Taught too well that wild despair 
Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair. 

All the first unquiet week 

Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek; 



A SONG OF OTHER DAYS 



Iu the first mouth's second half 
Thou shalt ouee attempt to laugh ; 
Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip, 
Slightly puckering round the lip, 
Till at last, iu sorrow's spite, 
Samuel makes thee laugh outright. 

While the first seven mornings last, 
Round thy chamber bolted fast 
Many a youth shall fume and pout, 

" Hang the girl, she 's always out! " 
"While the second week goes round, 
Vainly shall they ring and pound ; 
When the third week shall begin, 

" Martha, let the creature in." 

Now once more the flattering throng 
Round thee flock with smile and song 
But thy lips, unweaned as yet, 
Lisp, " Oh, how can I forget! " 
Men and devils both contrive 
Traps for catching girls alive; 
Eve was duped, and Helen kissed, — 
How, oh how, can you resist ? 

First be careful of your fan, 
Trust it not to youth or man; 
Love has filled a pirate's sail 
Often with its perfumed gale. 
Mind your kerchief most of all, 
Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; 
Shorter ell than mercers clip 
Is the space from hand to lip. 

Trust not such as talk in tropes, 
Full of pistols, daggers, ropes; 
All the hemp that Russia bears 
Scarce would answer lovers' prayers; 
Never thread was spun so fine, 
Never spider stretched the line, 
Would uot hold the lovers true 
That would really swing for you. 

Fiercely some shall storm and swear, 
Beating breasts in black despair; 
Others murmur with a sigh, 
You must melt, or they will die : 
Painted words on empty lies, 
Grubs with wings like butterflies; 
Let them die, and welcome, too; 
Pray what better could they do ? 

Fare thee well: if years efface 
From thy heart love's burning trace, 



Keep, oh keep that hallowed seat 
From the tread of vulgar feet; 
If the blue lips of the sea 
Wait with icy kiss for me, 
Let not thine forget the vow, 
Sealed how often, Love, as now. 



A SONG OF OTHER DAYS 

As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet 

Breathes soft the Alpine rose, 
So through life's desert springing sweet 

The flower of friendship grows; 
And as where'er the roses grow 

Some rain or dew descends, 
'Tis nature's law that wiue should flow 
To wet the lips of friends. 

Then once again, before we part, 

My empty glass shall ring ; 
And he that has the warmest heart 
Shall loudest laugh and sing. 

They say we were not born to eat; 

But gray-haired sages think 
It means, Be moderate in your meat, 

And partly live to drink. 
For baser tribes the rivers flow 

That know not wine or song ; 
Man wants but little drink below, 

But wants that little strong. 
Then once again, etc. 

If one bright drop is like the gem 

That decks a monarch's crown, 
One goblet holds a diadem 

Of rubies melted down ! 
A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, 

But, like the Egyptian queen, 
Bid each dissolving jewel glow 

My thirsty lips between. 
Then once again, etc. 

The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, 

Are silent when we call, 
Yet still the purple grapes return 

To cluster on the wall ; 
It was a bright Immortal's head 

They circled with the vine, 
And o'er their best and bravest dead 

They poured the dark-red wine. 
Then once again, etc. 

Methinks o'er every sparkling glass 
Young Eros waves his wings, 



42 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



And echoes o'er its dimples pass 
From dead Anacreon's strings ; 

And, tossing round its beaded brim 
Their locks of floating gold, 

With bacchant dance and choral hymn 
Return the nymphs of old. 
Then once again, etc. 

A welcome then to joy and mirth, 

From hearts as fresh as ours, 
To scatter o'er the dust of earth 

Their sweetly mingled flowers; 
'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills 

In spite of Folly's frown, 
And Nature, from her vine-clad hills, 
That rains her life-blood down ! 
Then once again, before we part, 

My empty glass shall ring; 
And he that has the warmest heart 
Shall loudest laugh and sing. 



SONG 

FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH 
LADIES WERE INVITED (NEW YORK 
MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, 
NOVEMBER, 1 842) 

[In the Professor Dr. Holmes makes the fol- 
lowing- reference to this song- : — 

"I once wrote a song- about wine, in 
which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was 
afraid some would think it was written inter 
pocula ; whereas it was composed in the bosom 
of my family, under the most tranquillizing 
domestic influences. 

" — The divinity student turned towards me, 
looking mischievous. — Can you tell me, — he 
said, — who wrote a song for a temperance 
celebration once, of which the following is a 
verse ? — 

" Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair 
The joys of the banquet to chasten and share ! 
Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, 
And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine ! 

I did, — I answered. — What are you going to 
do about it ? — I will tell you another line I 
wrote long ago : — 

" Don't be ' consistent,'— but be simply true."] 

A health to dear woman ! She bids us 

untwine, 
From the cup it encircles, the fast-clinging 

vine : 



But her cheek in its crystal with pleasure 

will glow, 
And mirror its bloom in the bright wave 

below. 

A health to sweet woman ! The days are 

no more 
When she watched for her lord till the 

revel was o'er, 
And smoothed the white pillow, and 

blushed when he came, 
As she pressed her cold lips on his forehead 

of flame. 

Alas for the loved one ! too spotless and fair 
The joys of his banquet to chasten and 

share ; 
Her eye lost its light that his goblet might 

shine, 
And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in 

his wine. 

Joy smiles in the fountain, health flows in 
the rills, 

As their ribbons of silver unwind from the 
hills; 

They breathe not the mist of the baccha- 
nal's dream, 

But the lilies of innocence float on their 
stream. 

Then a health and a welcome to woman 

once more ! 
She brings us a passport that laughs at our 

door ; 
It is written on crimson, — its letters are 

pearls, ■ — 
It is countersigned Nature. — So, room for 

the Girls I 



A SENTIMENT 

The pledge of Friendship ! it is still di- 
vine, 

Though watery floods have quenched its 
burning wine ; 

Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold, 

The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten 
gold, 

Around its brim the hand of Nature 
throws 

A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose. 

Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed 
bowl, 



A RHYMED LESSON 



43 



Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's 

soul, 
But dearer memories gild the tasteless 

wave 
That fainting Sidney perished as he gave. 
'T is the heart's current lends the cup its 

glow, 
Whate'er the fountain whence the draught 

may flow, — 
The diamond dew-drops sparkling through 

the sand, 
Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand, 
Or the dark streamlet oozing from the 

snow, 
Where creep and crouch the shuddering 

Esquimaux ; 
Ay, in the stream that, ere again we meet, 
Shall burst the pavement, glistening at our 

feet, 
And, stealing silent from its leafy hills, 
Thread all our alleys with its thousand 

rills, — 
In each pale draught if generous feeling 

blend, 
And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on 

friend, 
Even cold Cochituate every heart shall 

warm, 
And genial Nature still defy reform ! 



A RHYMED LESSON 

(URANIA) 

This poem was delivered before the Boston 
Mercantile Library Association, October 14, 
1846. 

Yes, dear Enchantress, — wandering far 

and long, 
In realms unperfumed by the breath of 

song, 
Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets 

around, 
And bitterest roots invade the ungenial 

ground, 
Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom 

mine, 
Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, 
Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, 
Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, 
Whose pangs are real, not the woes of 

rhyme 
That blue-eyed misses warble out of time; — 



Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, 
Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, 
Freed for a moment from the chains of 

toil, 
I tread once more thy consecrated soil; 
Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, 
Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne ! 

My dazzled glance explores the crowded 

hall; 
Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all ! 
I know my audience. All the gay and 

young 
Love the light antics of a playful tongue ; 
And these, remembering some expansive 

line 
My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, 
Are all impatience till the opening pun 
Proclaims the witty shamfight is begun. 
Two fifths at least, if not the total half, 
Have come infuriate for an earthquake 

laugh ; 
I know full well what alderman has tied 
His red bandanna tight about his side; 
I see the mother, who, aware that boys 
Perform their laughter with superfluous 

noise, 
Beside her kerchief brought an extra one 
To stop the explosions of her bursting son; 
I know a tailor, once a friend of mine, 
Expects great doings in the button line, — 
For mirth's concussions rip the outward 

case, 
And plant the stitches in a tenderer place. 
I know my audience, — these shall have 

their due; 
A smile awaits them ere my song is through! 

I know myself. Not servile for applause, 
My Muse permits no deprecating clause; 
Modest or vain, she will not be denied 
One bold confession due to honest pride ; 
And well she knows the drooping veil of song 
Shall save her boldness from the caviller's 

wrong. 
Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid im- 
parts 
To tell the secrets of our aching hearts : 
For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, 

bound, 
She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; 
For this, convulsed in thought's maternal 

pains, 
She loads her arms with rhyme's resound- 
ing chains; 



44 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



Faint though the music of her fetters be, 
It lends one charm, — her lips are ever 
free ! 

Think not I come, in manhood's fiery 

noon, 
To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon ; 
His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; 
Behold the star upon my lifted shield ! 
Though the just critic pass my humble 

name, 
And sweeter lips have drained the cup of 

fame, 
While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's 

lords, 
The soul within was tuned to deeper chords ! 
Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught 
To swing aloft the ponderous mace of 

thought, 
Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, 
Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling 

straw ? 
Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling 

spear 
The pure, warm hearts that bid me wel- 
come here ? 
No! while I wander through the land of 

dreams, 
To strive with great and play with trifling 

themes, 
Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. 
You have your judgment; will you trust to 

mine ? 



Between two breaths what crowded mys- 
teries lie, — 
The first short gasp, the last and long- 
drawn sigh! 
Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, 
Forth from the darkness of the past we 

glide, 
As living shadows for a moment seen 
In airy pageant on the eternal screen, 
Traced by a ray from one unchanging 

flame, 
Then seek the dust and stillness whence 
we came. 

But whence and why, our trembling 

souls inquire, 
Caught these dim visions their awakening 

fire? 
Oh, who forgets when first the piercing 

thought 



Through childhood's musings found its 

way unsought ? 
I am; — I live. The mystery and the 

fear 
When the dread question, What has 

BROUGHT ME HERE ? 

Burst through life's twilight, as before the 

sun 
Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun ! 

Are angel faces, silent and serene, 
Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, 
Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal 

strife, 
Are but the preludes to a larger life ? 

Or does life's summer see the end of all, 

These leaves of being mouldering as they 
fall, 

As the old poet vaguely used to deem, 

As Wesley questioned in his youthful 
dream ? 

Oh, could such mockery reach our souls 
indeed, 

Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's 
creed; 

Better than this a Heaven of man's de- 
vice, — 

The Indian's sports, the Moslem's para- 
dise ! 

Or is our being's only end and aim 
To add new glories to our Maker's name, 
As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, 
Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming 

rays ? 
Does earth send upward to the Eternal's 

ear 
The mingled discords of her jarring sphere 
To swell his anthem, while creation rings 
With notes of anguish from its shattered 

strings ? 
Is it for this the immortal Artist means 
These conscious, throbbing, agonized ma- 
chines ? 

Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can 

bind 
In chains like these the all-embracing 

Mind ; 
No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove 
The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, 
And praise a tyrant throned in lonely 

pride, 
Who loves himself, and cares for naught 

beside ; 



A RHYMED LESSON 



45 



Who gave thee, summoned from primeval 

night, 
A thousand laws, and not a single right, — 
A heart to feel, and quivering nerves to 

thrill, 
The sense of wrong, the death - defying 

will; 
Who girt thy senses with this goodly 

frame, 
Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame, 
Xot for thyself, unworthy of a thought, 
Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, 
But all for him, unchanging and supreme, 
The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme! 

Trust not the teacher with his lying 
scroll, 

Who tears the charter of thy shuddering 
sold; 

The God of love, who gave the breath that 
warms 

All living dust in all its varied forms, 

Asks not the tribute of a world like this 

To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. 

Thouo-h winged with life throuo-h all its 
radiant shores, 

Creation flowed with unexhausted stores 

Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; 

For this he called thee from the quicken- 
ing void ! 

Xor this alone ; a larger gift was thine, 

A mightier purpose swelled his vast de- 
sign: 

Thought, — conscience, — will, — to make 
them all thine own, 

He rent a pillar from the eternal throne ! 

Made in his image, thou must nobly 
dare 

The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. 

"With eve uplifted, it is thine to view, 

From thine own centre, Heaven's o'erarch- 
ing blue; 

So round thy heart a beaming circle lies 

Xo fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; 

From all its orbs one cheering voice is 
heard, 

Full to thine ear it bears the Father's 
word, 

Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod: 

" Seek thine own welfare, true to man and 
God!" 
Think not too meanly of thy low estate; 

Thou hast a cboice; to choose is to cre- 
ate! 



Remember whose the sacred lips that tell, 
Angels approve thee when thy choice is 

well; 
Remember, One, a judge of righteous men, 
Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten ! 
Use well the freedom which thy Master 

gave, 
(Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a 

slave ? ) 
And He who made thee to be just and true 
Will bless thee, love thee, — ay, respect 

thee too ! 

Nature has placed thee on a changeful 

tide, 
To breast its waves, but not without a 

guide ; 
Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, 
Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, 
As the true current it will falsely feel, 
Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; 
So will thy conscience lose its balanced 

truth 
If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, 
So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold 
Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. 
Go to yon tower, where busy science 

plies 
Her vast antennae, feeling through the 

skies : 
That little vernier on whose slender lines 
The midnight taper trembles as it shines, 
A silent index, tracks the planets' march 
In all their wanderings through the 

ethereal arch; 
Tells through the mist where dazzled 

Mercury burns, 
And marks the spot where Uranus returns. 

So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, 
The living index which thy Maker traced 
Repeats the line each starry Virtue draws 
Through the wide circuit of creation's 

laws ; 
Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray 
Where the dark shadows of temptation 

stray, 
But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of 

light, 
And leaves thee wandering o'er the ex- 
panse of night. 

" What is thy creed ? " a hundred lips 
inquire ; 
" Thou seekest God beneath what Christian 
spire ? " 



4 6 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1! 



Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies 
Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; 
When man's first incense rose above the 

plain, 
Of earth's two altars one was built by 

Cain ! 
Uncursed by doubt, our earliest creed 

we take; 
We love the precepts for the teacher's 

sake; 
The simple lessons which the nursery 

taught 
Fell soft and stainless on the buds of 

thought, 
And the full blossom owes its fairest hue 
To those sweet tear-drops of affection's 

dew. 
Too oft the light that led our earlier 

hours 
Fades with the perfume of our cradle 

flowers ; 
The clear, cold question chills to frozen 

doubt; 
Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without: 
Oh then, if Reason waver at thy side, 
Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide; 
Go to thy birthplace, and, if faith was 

there, 
Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's 

prayer! 
Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying 

arm, 
And age, like distance, lends a double 

charm ; 
In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, 
What holy awe invests the saintly tomb ! 
There pride will bow, and anxious care ex- 
pand, 
And creeping avarice come with open hand ; 
The gay can weep, the impious can adore, 
From morn's first glimmerings on the 

chancel floor 
Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains 
Through the faint halos of the irised panes. 
Yet there are graves, whose rudely- 

shapen sod 
Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton 

trod ; 
Graves where the verdure has not dared to 

shoot, 
Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed 

its root, 
Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a 

name, 
The eternal record shall at length proclaim 



Pure as the holiest in the long array 
Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay! 

Come, seek the air; some pictures we 
may gain 

Whose passing shadows shall not be in 
vain; 

Not from the scenes that crowd the stran- 
ger's soil, 

Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, 

But when the Sabbath brings its kind re- 
lease, 

And Care lies slumbering on the lap of 
Peace. 

The air is hushed, the street is holy ground ; 
Hark! The sweet bells renew their wel- 
come sound: 
As one by one awakes each silent tongue, 
It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. 

The Chapel, last of sublunary things 
That stirs our echoes with the name of 

Kings, 
Whose bell, just glistening from the font 

and forge, 
Rolled its proud requiem for the second 

George, 
Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, 
Flings to the wind its deep, sonorous clang; 
The simpler pile, that, mindful of the 

hour 
When Howe's artillery shook its half -built 

tower, 
Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, 
The iron breastpin which the " Rebels " 

threw, 
Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering 

thrill 
Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; 
Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, 
Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern 

spire ; 
The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, 
His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, 
Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, 
Swings from its brim the swollen floods of 

sound; 
While, sad with memories of the olden 

time, 
Throbs from his tower the Northern Min- 
strel's chime, — 
Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient 

song, 
But tears still follow as they breathe along. 



A RHYMED LESSON 



47 



Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to 
range 

Where man and nature, faith and customs 
change, 

Borne in thy memory, each familiar tone 

Mourns on the winds that sigh in every 
zone. 

"When Ceylon sweeps thee with her per- 
fumed breeze 

Through the warm billows of the Indian 
seas; 

When — ship and shadow blended both in 
one — 

Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, 

From sparkling midnight to refulgent 
noon 

Thy canvas swelling with the still monsoon; 

When through thy shrouds the wild tor- 
nado sings, 

And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered 
wings, — 

Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, 

And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal ! 

Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array 

Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, 

Home, with its smiling board, its cheering 
fire, 

The half-choked welcome of the expecting 
sire, 

The mother's kiss, and, still if aught re- 
main, 

Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent 
strain. 
Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean 

To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; 

Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's 
chills, 

His heart lies warm among his triple hills ! 

Turned from her path by this deceitful 
gleam, 
My wayward fancy half forgets her theme. 
See through the streets that slumbered in 

repose 
The living current of devotion flows, 
Its varied forms in one harmonious band: 
Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand; 
Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall 
To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl ; 
And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to ap- 
pear, 
Lift the deep borders of the proud cash- 
mere. 
See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and 
pale, 



Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's 

veil; 
Alone she wanders where with him she trod, 
No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. 
While other doublets deviate here and 
there, 
What secret handcuff binds that pretty 

pair ? 
Compactest couple ! pressing side to side, — 
Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride ! 
By the white neckcloth, with its strait- 
ened tie, 
The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, 
Severe and smileless, he that runs may read 
The stern disciple of Geneva's creed: 
Decent and slow, behold his solemn march ; 
Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. 

A livelier bearing of the outward man, 
The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, 
Now smartly raised or half profanely 

twirled, — 
A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day 

world, — 
Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes be- 
hold 
A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. 
Down the chill street that curves in 
gloomiest shade 
What marks betray yon solitary maid ? 
The cheek's red rose that speaks of balm- 
ier air, 
The Celtic hue that shades her braided hair, 
The gilded missal in her kerchief tied, — 
Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side ! 
Sister in toil, though blanched by colder 
skies, 
That left their azure in her downcast eyes, 
See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, 
Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of 

the wild, 
Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon 

shines, 
And broad Penobscot dashes through the 

pines. 
Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold 
The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric 

fold. 
Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she 

stands, 
The seventh 

weary hands. 
Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well 

be sure 
He who ordained the Sabbath loves the 
poor ! 



sweet morning folds her 



4 8 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



This weekly picture faithful Memory 
draws, 

Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause; 

Faint is the glow such barren hopes can 
lend, 

And frail the line that asks no loftier end. 
Trust me, kind listener, I will yet be- 
guile 

Thy saddened features of the promised 
smile. 

This magic mantle thou must well divide, 

It has its sable and its ermine side; 

Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, 

Take thou in silence what I give in tears. 

Dear listening soul, this transitory scene 
Of murmuring stillness, busily serene, — 
This solemn pause, the breathing-space of 

man, 
The halt of toil's exhausted caravan, — 
Comes sweet with music to thy wearied 

ear; 
Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere ! 

Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes 

that guide 
The lowliest brother straying from thy 

side: 
If right, they bid thee tremble for thine 

own; 
If wrong, the verdict is for God alone ! 

What though the champions of thy faith 

esteem 
The sprinkled fountain or baptismal 

stream ; 
Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife 
Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of 

life? 

Let my free soul, expanding as it can, 
Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puri- 
tan; 
But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride ? 
In that stern faith my angel Mary died; 
Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, 
Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made 
grave ? 

True, the harsh founders of thy church 

reviled 
That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's 

child; 
Must thou be raking in the crumbled past 
For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast ? 



See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile 
The whitened skull of old Servetus smile ! 
Round her young heart thy " Romish 

Upas " threw 
Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she 

grew; 
Thy sneering voice may call them " Popish 

tricks," 
Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, 
But De Profundis blessed her father's 

grave, 
That " idol " cross her dying mother gave ! 
What if some angel looks with equal eyes 
On her and thee, the simple and the wise, 
Writes each dark fault against thy brighter 

creed, 
And drops a tear with every foolish bead! 
Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reek- 
ing page; 
Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier 

age; 
Strive with the wanderer from the better 

path, 
Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; 
Weep for the frail that err, the weak that 

fall, 
Have thine own faith, — but hope and 

pray for all ! 

Faith; Conscience; Love. A meaner 

task remains, 
And humbler thoughts must creep in 

lowlier strains. 
Shalt thou be honest ? Ask the worldly 

schools, 
And all will tell thee knaves are busier 

fools ; 
Prudent ? Industrious ? Let not modern 

pens 
Instruct "Poor Richard's " fellow-citizens. 

Be firm! One constant element in luck 
Is genuine solid old Teutonic pluck. 
See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's 

thrill, 
Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise 

still. 

Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold 

will slip, 
But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; 
Small as he looks, the jaw that never 

yields 
Drags down the bellowing monarch of the 

fields ! 



A RHYMED LESSON 



49 



Yet in opinions look not always back, — 
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming- 
track ; 
Leave what you "ve done for what you have 

to do; 
Don't be " consistent," but be simply true. 

Don't catch the fidgets; you have found 

your place 
Just in the focus of a nervous race, 
Fretful to change and rabid to discuss, 
Full of excitements, always in a fuss. 
Think of the patriarchs; then compare as 

men 
These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue 

and pen ! 
Run, if you like, but try to keep your 

breath ; 
"Work like a man, but don't be worked to 

death; 
And with new notions, — let me change 

the rule, — 
Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool. 

Choose well your set • our feeble nature 

seeks 
The aid of clubs, the countenance of 

cliques ; 
And with this object settle first of all 
Your weight of metal and your size of 

ball. 
Track not the steps of such as hold you 

cheap, 
Too mean to prize, though good enough to 

keep ; 
The " real, genuine, no-mistake Tom 

Thumbs " 
Are little people fed on great men's 

crumbs. 
Yet keep no followers of that hateful 

brood 
That basely mingles with its wholesome 

food 
The tumid reptile, which, the poet said, 
Doth wear a precious jewel in his head. 

If the wild filly, " Progress," thou 
wouldst ride, 
Have young companions ever at thy side; 
But wouldst thou stride the stanch old 

mare, " Success," 
Go with thine elders, though they please 
thee less. 
Shun such as lounge through afternoons 
and eves, 



And on thy dial write, " Beware of 

thieves! " 
Felon of minutes, never taught to feel 
The worth of treasures which thy fingers 

steal, 
Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, 
But spare the right, — it holds my golden 

time ! 

Does praise delight thee ? Choose some 

ultra side, — 
A sure old recipe, and often tried; 
Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, 
Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; 
But know the forfeit which thy choice 

abides, 
For on two wheels the poor reformer 

rides, — 
One black with epithets the anti throws, 
One white with flattery painted by the pros. 

Though books on manners are not out 

of print, 
An honest tongue may drop a harmless 

hint. 
Stop not, unthinking, every friend you 

meet, 
To spin your wordy fabric in the street; 
While you are emptying your colloquial 

pack, 
The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back. 
Nor cloud his features with the unwel- 
come tale 
Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale ; 
Health is a subject for his child, his wife, 
And the rude office that insures his life. 
Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's 

soul, 
Not on his garments, to detect a hole; 
" How to observe " is what thy pages show, 
Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau ! 
Oh, what a precious book the one would be 
That taught observers what they 're not to 

see ! 

I tell in verse — 't were better done in 

prose — 
One curious trick that everybody knows; 
Once form this habit, and it 's very strange 
How long it sticks, how hard it is to 

change. 
Two friendly people, both disposed to 

smile, 
Who meet, like others, every little while, 
Instead of passing with a pleasant bow, 



5° 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



And " How d' ye do ? " or " How 's your 

uncle now ? " 
Impelled by feelings in their nature kind, 
But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, 
Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, 
Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; 
Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely 

struck, 
Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; 
Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly 

pleased 
To screw the vice in which they both are 

squeezed ; 
So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or 

snow, 
Both bored to death, and both afraid to 

go! 
Your hat once lifted, do not hang your 

fire, 
Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire; 
When your old castor on your crown you 

clap, 
Go off; you 've mounted your percussion 

cap. 

Some words on language may be well 

applied, 
And take them kindly, though they touch 

your pride. 
Words lead to things; a scale is more pre- 
cise, — 
Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, 

drinking, vice. 
Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips 
The native freedom of the Saxon lips ; 
See the brown peasant of the plastic South, 
How all his passions play about his mouth ! 
With us, the feature that transmits the 

soul, 
A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. 
The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's 

walk 
Tie the small muscles when he strives to 

talk; 
Not all the pumice of the polished town 
Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard 

down; 
Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race 
By this one mark, — he 's awkward in the 

face ; — 
Nature's rude impress, long before he 

knew 
The sunny street that holds the sifted few. 
It can't be helped, though, if we 're taken 

young, 



We gain some freedom of the lips and 

tongue ; 
But school and college often try in vain 
To break the padlock of our boyhood's 

chain : 
One stubborn word will prove this axiom 

true, — 
No quondam rustic can enunciate view. 

A few brief stanzas may be well em- 
ployed 
To speak of errors we can all avoid. 

Learning condemns beyond the reach of 
hope 
The careless lips that speak of soap for 

soap; 
Her edict exiles from her fair abode 
The clownish voice that utters road for 

road : 
Less stern to him who calls his coat a coat, 
And steers his boat, believing it a boat, 
She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, 
Who said at Cambridge most instead of 

most, 
But knit her brows and stamped her angry 

foot 
To hear a Teacher call a robt a root. 

Once more: speak clearly, if you speak 

at all ; 
Carve every word before you let it fall ; 
Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, 
Try over-hard to roll the British R ; 
Do put your accents in the proper spot ; 
Don't, — let me beg you, — don't say 

"How? "for "What?" 
And when you stick on conversation's burs, 
Don't strew your pathway with those 

dreadful urs. 

From little matters let us pass to less, 
And lightly touch the mysteries of dress ; 
The outward forms the inner man reveal, — 
We guess the pulp before we cut the peel. 

I leave the broadcloth, — coats and all 
the rest, — 

The dangerous waistcoat, called by cock- 
neys " vest," 

The things named " pants " in certain 
documents, 

A word not made for gentlemen, but 
"gents ; " 

One single precept might the whole con- 
dense : 



A RHYMED LESSON 



5' 



Be sure your tailor is a man of sense; 
But add a little care, a decent pride, 
And always err upon the sober side. 

Three pairs of boots one pair of feet de- 
mands, 
If polished daily by the owner's hands ; 
If the dark menial's visit save from this, 
Have twice the number, — for he '11 some- 
times miss. 
One pair for critics of the nicer sex, 
Close in the instep's clinging circumflex, 
Long, narrow, light; the Gallic boot of love, 
A kind of cross between a boot and glove. 
Compact, but easy, strong, substantial, 

square, 
Let native art compile the medium pair. 
The third remains, and let your tasteful 

skill 
Here show some relics of affection still; 
Let no stiff cowhide, reeking from the tan, 
No rough caoutchouc, no deformed brogan, 
Disgrace the tapering outline of your feet, 
Though yellow torrents gurgle through the 
street. 

Wear seemly gloves; not black, nor yet 

too light, 
And least of all the pair that once was 

white ; 
Let the dead party where you told your 

loves 
Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves; 
Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, 
But be a parent, — don't neglect your kids. 

Have a good hat; the secret of your looks 
Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks; 
Virtue may flourish in an old cravat, 
But man and nature scorn the shocking hat. 
Does beauty slight you from her gay 

abodes ? 
Like bright Apollo, you must take to 

RJioades, — 
Mount the new castor, — ice itself will melt; 
Boots, gloves, may fail; the hat is always 

felt! 

Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed 

white, 
With small pearl buttons, — two of them 

in sight, — 
Is always genuine, while your gems may 

pass, 
Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. 



But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies 
That round his breast the shabby rustic ties ; 
Breathe not the name profaned to hallow 

things 
The indignant laundress blushes when she 

brings ! 

Our freeborn race, averse to every check, 
Has tossed the yoke of Europe from its 

neck; 
From the green prairie to the sea-girt town, 
The whole wide nation turns its collars 

down. 
The stately neck is manhood's manliest 

part; 
It takes the life-blood freshest from the 

heart. 
With short, curled ringlets close around it 

spread, 
How light and strong it lifts the Grecian 

head! 
Thine, fair Erechtheus of Minerva's wall; 
Or thine, young athlete of the Louvre's 

hall, 
Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun 
That filled the arena where thy wreaths 

were won, 
Firm as the band that clasps the antlered 

spoil 
Strained in the winding anaconda's coil! 

I spare the contrast; it were only kind 
To be a little, nay, intensely blind. 
Choose for yourself: I know it cuts your 

ear; 
I know the points mil sometimes interfere ; 
I know that often, like the filial John, 
Whom sleep surprised with half his drapery 

on, 
You show your features to the astonished 

town 
With one side standing and the other 

down ; — 
But oh, my friend! my favorite fellow- 
man! 
If Nature made you on her modern plan, 
Sooner than wander with your windpipe 

bare, — 
The fruit of Eden ripening in the air, — 
With that lean head-stalk, that protruding 

chin, 
Wear standing collars, were they made of 

tin! 
And have a neckcloth — by the throat of 

Jove ! — 
Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove! 



5 2 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND ii 



The long-drawn lesson narrows to its 

close, 
Chill, slender, slow, the dwindled current 

flows; 
Tired of the ripples on its feeble springs, 
Once more the Muse unfolds her upward 

wings. 

Land of my birth, with this unhallowed 
tongue, 
Thy hopes, thy dangers, I perchance had 

sung; 
But who shall sing, in brutal disregard 
Of all the essentials of the " native bard " ? 
Lake, sea, shore, prairie, forest, moun- 
tain, fall, 
His eye omnivorous must devour them all; 
The tallest summits and the broadest tides 
His foot must compass with its giant strides, 
Where Ocean thunders, where Missouri 

rolls, 
And tread at once the tropics and the 

poles ; 
His food all forms of earth, fire, water, air, 
His home all space, his birthplace every- 
where. 

Some grave compatriot, having seen per- 
haps 
The pictured page that goes in Worcester's 

Maps, 
And read in earnest what was said in jest, 
" Who drives fat oxen " — please to add 

the rest, — 
Sprung the odd notion that the poet's 

dreams 
Grow in the ratio of his hills and streams; 
And hence insisted that the aforesaid 

"bard," 
Pink of the future, fancy's pattern-card, 
The babe of nature in the " giant West," 
Must be of course her biggest and her 
best. 

Oh! when at length the expected bard 

shall come, 
Land of our pride, to strike thine echoes 

dumb, 
(And many a voice exclaims in prose and 

rhyme, 
It 's getting late, and he 's behind his time,) 
When all thy mountains clap their hands 

in joy> 

And all thy cataracts thunder, " That 's 
the boy," — 



Say if with him the reign of song shall end, 
And Heaven declare its final dividend ! 

Be calm, dear brother! whose impas- 
sioned strain 
Comes from an alley watered by a drain; 
The little Mincio, dribbling to the Po, 
Beats all the epics of the Hoang Ho; 
If loved in earnest by the tuneful maid, 
Don't mind their nonsense, — never be 
afraid ! 

The nurse of poets feeds her winged 

brood 
By common firesides, on familiar food; 
In a low hamlet, by a narrow stream, 
Where bovine rustics used to doze and 

dream, 
She filled young William's fier}?" fancy full, 
While old John Shakespeare talked of 

beeves and wool ! 

No Alpine needle, with its climbing spire, 
Brings down for mortals the Promethean 

fire, 
If careless nature have forgot to frame 
An altar worthy of the sacred flame. 

ITnblest by any save the goatherd's lines, 
Mont Blanc rose soaring through his " sea 

of pines; " 
In vain the rivers from their ice-caves flash; 
No hymn salutes them but the Banz des 

Vaches, 
Till lazy Coleridge, by the morning's light, 
Gazed for a moment on the fields of white, 
And lo! the glaciers found at length a 

tongue, 
Mont Blanc was vocal, and Chamouni sung! 

Children of wealth or want, to each is 

given 
One spot of green, and all the blue of 

heaven ! 
Enough if these their outward shows im- 
part; 
The rest is thine, — the scenery of the heart. 

If passion's hectic in thy stanzas glow, 
Thy heart's best life-blood ebbing as they 

flow; 
If with thy verse thy strength and bloom 

distil, 
Drained by the pulses of the fevered 

thrill; 
If sound's sweet effluence polarize thy 

brain, 



A RHYMED LESSON 



53 



And thoughts turn crystals iu thy fluid 

strain, — 
Nor rolling ocean, nor the prairie's bloom, 
Nor streaming cliffs, nor rayless cavern's 

gloom, 
Need'st thou, young poet, to inform thy 

line; 
Thy own broad signet stamps thy song- 
divine ! 
Let others gaze where silvery streams 
are rolled, 
And chase the rainbow for its cup of gold; 
To thee all landscapes wear a heavenly dye, 
Changed in the glance of thy prismatic eye; 
Nature evoked thee in sublimer throes, 
For thee her inmost Arethusa flows, — 
The mighty mother's living depths are 

stirred, — 
Thou art the starred Osiris of the herd ! 

A few brief lines; they touch on solemn 

chords, 
And hearts may leap to hear their honest 

words ; 
Yet, ere the jarring bugle-blast is blown, 
The softer lyre shall breathe its soothing 

tone. 

New England ! proudly may thy childreu 

claim 
Their honored birthright by its humblest 

name! 
Cold are thy skies, but, ever fresh and 

clear, 
No rank malaria stains thine atmosphere; 
No fungous weeds invade thy scanty soil, 
Scarred by the ploughshares of unslumber- 

ing toil. 
Long may the doctrines by thy sages 

taught, 
Raised from the quarries where their sires 

have wrought, 
Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed 

land. — 
As slow to rear, as obdurate to stand ; 
And as the ice that leaves thy crystal mine 
Chills the fierce alcohol in the Creole's 

wine, 
So may the doctrines of thy sober school 
Keep the hot theories of thy neighbors 

cool! 

If ever, trampling on her ancient path, 
Cankered by treachery or inflamed by 
wrath, 



With smooth " Resolves " or with dis- 
cordant cries, 

The mad Briareus of disunion rise, 

Chiefs of New England ! by your sires' 
renown, 

Dash the red torches of the rebel down ! 

Flood his black hearthstone till its flames 
expire, 

Though your old Sachem fanned his coun- 
cil-fire ! 

But if at last, her fading cycle run, 
The tongue must forfeit what the arm has 

won, 
Then rise, wild Ocean ! roll thy surging 

shock 
Full on old Plymouth's desecrated rock ! 
Scale the proud shaft degenerate hands 

have hewn, 
Where bleeding Yalor stained the flowers 

of June! 
Sweep in one tide her spires and turrets 

down, 
And howl her dirge above Monadnock's 

crown ! 

List not the tale; the Pilgrim's hallowed 

shore, 
Though strewn with weeds, is granite at 

the core; 
Oh, rather trust that He who made her 

free 
Will keep her true as long as faith shall be! 
Farewell ! yet lingering through the 

destined hour, 
Leave, sweet Enchantress, one memorial 

flower ! 

An Angel, floating o'er the waste of 

snow 
That clad our Western desert, long ago, 
(The same fair spirit who, unseen by day, 
Shone as a star along the Mayflower's 

way,) — 
Sent, the first herald of the Heavenly plan, 
To choose on earth a resting-place for 

man, — 
Tired with his flight along the unvaried 

field, 
Turned to soar upwards, when his glance 

revealed 
A calm, bright bay enclosed in rocky 

bounds, 
And at its entrance stood three sister 

mounds. 



54 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



The Angel spake: "This threefold hill 

shall be 
The home of Arts, the nurse of Liberty ! 
One stately summit from its shaft shall 

pour 
Its deep-red blaze along the darkened 

shore ; 
Emblem of thoughts that, kindling far and 

wide, 
In danger's night shall be a nation's guide. 
One swelling crest the citadel shall crown, 
Its slanted bastions black with battle's 

frown, 
And bid the sons that tread its scowling 

heights 
Bare their strong arms for man and all his 

rights! 
One silent steep along the northern wave 
Shall hold the patriarch's and the hero's 

grave; 
When fades the torch, when o'er the peace- 
ful scene 
The embattled fortress smiles in living 

green, 
The cross of Faith, the anchor staff of 

Hope, 
Shall stand eternal on its grassy slope; 
There through all time shall faithful 

Memory tell, 
' Here Virtue toiled, and Patriot Valor 

fell; 
Thy free, proud fathers slumber at thy 

side ; 
Live as they lived, or perish as they 

died ! ' " 



AN AFTER-DINNER POEM 

(TERPSICHORE) 

Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 24, 
1843. 

In narrowest girdle, reluctant Muse, 
In closest frock and Cinderella shoes, 
Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief dis- 
play, 
One zephyr step, and then dissolve away! 



Short is the space that gods and men can 

spare 
To Song's twin brother when she is not 

there. 



Let others water every lusty line, 

As Homer's heroes did their purple wine; 

Pierian revellers! Know in strains like 

these 
The native juice, the real honest squeeze, — 
Strains that, diluted to the twentieth 

power, 
In yon grave temple might have filled an 

hour. 
Small room for Fancy's many-chorded 

lyre, 
For Wit's bright rockets with their trains 

of fire, 
For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise 
The iron tutor's tear-denying eyes, 
For Mirth, whose finger with delusive 

wile 
Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, 
For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood 
On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, 
The pun, the fun, the moral, and the joke, 
The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic poke, — 
Small space for these, so pressed by nig- 
gard Time, 
Like that false matron, known to nursery 

rhyme, — 
Insidious Morey, — scarce her tale begun, 
Ere listening infants weep the story done. 

Oh, had we room to rip the mighty bags 
That Time, the harlequin, has stuffed with 

rags! 
Grant us one moment to unloose the 

strings, 
While the old graybeard shuts his leather 

wings. 
But what a heap of motley trash appears 
Crammed in the bundles of successive 

years ! 
As the lost rustic on some festal day 
Stares through the concourse in its vast 

array, — 
Where in one cake a throng of faces runs, 
All stuck together like a sheet of buns, — 
And throws the bait of some unheeded 

name, 
Or shoots a wink with most uncertain aim, 
So roams my vision, wandering over all, 
And strives to choose, but knows not where 

to fall. 

Skins of flayed authors, husks of dead re- 
views, 
irn-coa 

shoes, 



AN AFTER-DINNER POEM 



55 



Scraps from cold feasts, where conversa- 
tion runs 

Through mouldy toasts to oxidated puns, 

And grating songs a listening crowd en- 
dures, 

Rasped from the throats of bellowing 
amateurs; 

Sermons, whose writers played such dan- 
gerous tricks 

Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, 

(Strange that one term such distant poles 
should link, 

The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's 
zinc) ; 

Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs 

A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, 

Where all the syllables that end in ed, 

Like old dragoons, have cuts across the 
head ; 

Essays so dark Champollion might despair 

To guess what mummy of a thought was 
there, 

Where our poor English, striped with 
foreign phrase, 

Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise; 

Lectures that cut our dinners down to 
roots, 

Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick 
to fruits, — 

Delusive error, as at trifling charge 

Professor Gripes will certify at large ; 

Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal, 

Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel; 

And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs in- 
vite 

To wandering knaves that discount fools 
at sight: 

Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid 
bills, 

And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills, 

And ancient bell-crowns with contracted 
rim, 

And bonnets hideous with expanded brim, 

And coats whose memory turns the sartor 
pale, 

Their sequels tapering like a lizard's 
tail, — 

How might we spread them to the smiling 
day, 

And toss them, fluttering like the new- 
mown hay, 

To laughter's light or sorrow's pitying 
shower, 

Were these brief minutes lengthened to an 
hour. 



The narrow moments fit like Sunday 

shoes, — 
How vast the heap, how quickly must we 

choose ! 
A few small scraps from out his mountain 

mass 
We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass. 
This shrunken CRUST that Cerberus could 

not bite, 
Stamped (in one corner) " Pickwick copy- 

right," 
Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's 

yeast, 
Was once a loaf, and helped to make a 

feast. 
He for whose sake the glittering show 

appears 
Has sown the world with laughter and 

with tears, 
And they whose welcome wets the bumper's 

brim 
Have wit and wisdom, — for they all quote 

him. 
So, many a tongue the evening hour pro- 
longs 
With spangled speeches, — let alone the 

songs ; 
Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys 

laugh, 
And weak teetotals warm to half and half, 
And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, 
Cut their first crop of youth's precocious 

greens, 
And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, 
With loaded barrels and percussion caps, 
And Pathos, cantering through the minor 

keys, 
Waves all her onions to the trembling 

breeze; 
While the great Feasted views with silent 

glee 
His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee. 

Sweet is the scene where genial friendship 
plays 

The pleasing game of interchanging praise. 

Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart, 

Is ever pliant to the master's art; 

Soothed with a word, she peacefully with- 
draws 

And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious 
claws, 

And thrills the hand that smooths her 
glossy fur 

With the light tremor of her grateful purr. 



56 



POEMS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1837 AND 1848 



But what sad music fills the quiet ball, 

If on her back a feline rival fall ! 

Aud oh, what noises shake the tranquil 

house 
If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse ! 

Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways, 

Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise; 

But if the stranger touch thy modes or 
laws, 

Off goes the velvet and out come the 
claws ! 

And thou, Illustrious ! but too poorly 
paid 

In toasts from Pickwick for thy great cru- 
sade, 

Though, while the echoes labored with thy 
name, 

The public trap denied thy little game, 

Let other lips our jealous laws revile, — 

The marble Talfourd or the rude Car- 

lyle,- 

But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to 
close 

"Where'er the light of kindly nature glows, 

Let not the dollars that a churl denies 

Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's 
eyes ! 

Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind, 

Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined. 

Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms 
smile 

That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle. 

There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a 
thousand charms; 

Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked 
arms. 

Long are the furrows he must trace be- 
tween 

The ocean's azure and the prairie's green ; 

Full many a blank his destined realm dis- 
plays, 

Yet sees the promise of his riper days: 

Far through yon depths the panting en- 
gine moves, 

His chariots ringing in their steel-shod 
grooves ; 

And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave 

O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant 
cave! 

While tasks like these employ his anxious 
hours, 

What if his cornfields are not edged with 
flowers ? 

Though bright as silver the meridian beams 



Shine through the crystal of thine English 

streams, 
Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled 
That drains our Andes and divides a world ! 

But lo ! a parchment ! Surely it would 

seem 
The sculptured impress speaks of power 

supreme ; 
Some grave design the solemn page must 

claim 
That shows so broadly an emblazoned name. 
A sovereign's promise ! Look, the lines 

afford 
All Honor gives when Caution asks his 

word : 
There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white 

hands, 
Aud awful Justice knit her iron bands ; 
Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's 

dye, 

And every letter crusted with a lie. 
Alas ! no treason has degraded yet 
The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet ; 
A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's 

pledge, 
Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's 

edge; _ 
While jockeying senates stop to sign and 

seal, 
And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. 
Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load, 
Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest 

abode, 
And round her forehead, wreathed with 

heavenly flame, 
Bind the dark garland of her daughter's 

shame ! 
Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast, 
Coil her stained ensign round its haughty 

mast, 
Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar, 
And drive a bolt through every blackened 

star ! 
Once more, — once only, — we must stop so 

soon : 
What have we here ? A German-silver 

spoon ; 
A cheap utensil, which we often see 
Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea, 
Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin, 
Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin ; 
The bowl is shallow, and the handle small, 
Marked in large letters with the name 

Jean Paul. 



AN AFTER-DINNER POEM 



57 



Small as it is, its powers are passing 

strange, 
For all who use it show a wondrous change ; 
And first, a fact to make the barbers stare, 
It beats Macassar for the growth of hair. 
See those small youngsters whose expansive 

ears 
Maternal kindness grazed with frequent 

shears ; 
Each bristling crop a dangling mass be- 
comes, 
And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms ! 
Nor this alone its magic power displays, 
It alters strangely all their works and 

ways ; 
With uncouth words they tire their tender 

lungs, 
The same bald phrases on their hundred 

tongues : 
" Ever " •" The Ages " in their page ap- 
pear, 
"Alwav " the bedlamite is called a 

" Seer ; " 
On every leaf the " earnest " sage may 

scan, 
Portentous bore ! their " many-sided " 

man, — 
A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, 
Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, 
Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, 
Who rides a beetle, which he calls a 

" Sphinx." 
And oh, what questions asked in clubfoot 

rhyme 
Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute 

Time ! 
Here babbling " Insight " shouts in Nature's 

ears 
His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres ; 
There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, 
With ; < Whence ami?" and " Wherefore 

did I come ? " 
Deluded infants ! will the}' ever know 
Some doubts must darken o'er the world 

below, 
Though all the Platos of the nursery trail 
Their " clouds of glory " at the go-cart's 

tail ? 
Oh might these couplets their attention 

claim 



That gain their author the Philistine's 

name ! 
(A stubborn race, that, spurning foreign 

law, 
Was much belabored with an ass's jaw.) 

Melodious Laura ! From the sad retreats 
That hold thee, smothered with excess of 

sweets, 
Shade of a shadow, spectre of a dream, 
Glance thy wan eye across the Stygian 

stream ! 
The slipshod dreamer treads thy fragrant 

halls, 
The sophist's cobwebs hang thy roseate 

walls, 
And o'er the crotchets of thy jingling tunes 
The bard of mystery scrawls his crooked 

" runes." 
Yes, thou art gone, with all the tuneful 

hordes 
That candied thoughts in amber-colored 

words, 
And in the precincts of thy late abodes 
The clattering verse-wright hammers Or- 
phic odes. 
Thou, soft as zephyr, wast content to fly 
On the gilt pinions of a balmy sigh ; 
He, vast as Phoebus on his burning wheels, 
Would stride through ether at Orion's heels. 
Thy emblem, Laura, was a perfume-jar, 
And thine, young Orpheus, is a pewter star. 
The balance trembles, — be its verdict told 
When the new jargon slumbers with the 

old! 



Cease, playful goddess ! From thine airy 

bound 
Drop like a feather softly to the ground ; 
This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, 
And there is mischief in thy kindling 

glance. 
To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, 
Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made 

gown, 
Too blest by fortune if the passing day 
Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, 
But oh, still happier if the next forgets 
Thy daring steps and dangerous pirouettes ! 



MEDICAL POEMS 



[This division was made when the River- 
side Edition was arranged, but by accident the 



last number in the division was at that time 
omitted.] 



THE MORNING VISIT 

A sick man's chamber, though it often 

boast 
The grateful presence of a literal toast, 
Can hardly claim, amidst its various 

wealth, 
The right unchallenged to propose a 

health; 
Yet though its tenant is denied the feast, 
Friendship must launch his sentiment at 

least, 
As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' 

lips, 
Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' 

tips. 

The morning visit, — not till sickness falls 
In the charmed circles of your own safe 

walls ; 
Till fever's throb and pain's relentless rack 
Stretch you all helpless on your aching 

back; 
Not till you play the patient in your turn, 
The morning visit's mystery shall you 

learn. 

'T is a small matter in your neighbor's 

case, 
To charge your fee for showing him your 

face; 
You skip up-stairs, inquire, inspect, and 

touch, 
Prescribe, take leave, and off to twenty 

such. 

But when at length, by fate's transferred 

decree, 
The visitor becomes the visitee, 
Oh, then, indeed, it pulls another string ; 
Your ox is gored, and that 's a different 

thing ! 



Your friend is sick : phlegmatic as a Turk, 
You write your recipe and let it work; 
Not yours to stand the shiver and the 

frown, 
And sometimes worse, with which your 

draught goes down. 
Calm as a clock your knowing hand di- 
rects, 
Rhei, jalapce ana grana sex, 
Or traces on some tender missive's back, 
Scrupulos duos pulveris ipecac; 
And leaves your patient to his qualms and 

gripes, 
Cool as a sportsman banging at his snipes. 
But change the time, the person, and the 

place, 
And be yourself " the interesting case," 
You '11 gain some knowledge which it 's 

well to learn ; 
In future practice it may serve your turn. 
Leeches, for instance, — pleasing creatures 

quite ; 
Try them, — and bless you, — don't you 

find they bite ? 
You raise a blister for the smallest cause, 
But be yourself the sitter whom it draws, 
And trust my statement, you will not 

deny 
The worst of draughtsmen is your Spanish 

fly! 
It 's mighty easy ordering when you please, 
Infusi senna capiat uncias tres ; 
It 's mighty different when you quackle 

down 
Your own three ounces of the liquid brown. 
Pilula, pulvis, — pleasant words enough, 
When other throats receive the shocking 

stuff; 
But oh, what flattery can disguise the 

groan 
That meets the gulp which sends it through 

your own ! 



THE TWO ARMIES 



59 



Be gentle, then, though Art's unsparing 

rules 
Give you the handling of her sharpest 

tools ; 
Use them not rashly, — sickness is enough ; 
Be always "ready," but be never "rough." 

Of all the ills that suffering man endures, 
The largest fraction liberal Nature cures; 
Of those remaining, 't is the smallest part 
Yields to the efforts of judicious Art; 
But simple Kindness, kneeling by the bed 
To shift the pillow for the sick man's head, 
Give the fresh draught to cool the lips that 

burn, 
Fan the hot brow, the weary frame to 

turn, — 
Kindness, untutored by our grave M. D.'s, 
But Nature's graduate, when she schools to 

please, 
Wins back more sufferers with her voice 

and smile 
Than all the trumpery in the druggist's 

pile. 

Once more, be quiet : coming up the stair, 
Don't be a plantigrade, a human bear, 
But, stealing softly on the silent toe, 
Reach the sick chamber ere you 're heard 

below. 
Whatever changes there may greet your 

eyes, 
Let not your looks proclaim the least sur- 
prise ; 
It 's not your business by your face to show 
All that your patient does not want to 

know ; 
Nay, use your optics with considerate care, 
And don't abuse your privilege to stare. 
But if your eyes may probe him overmuch, 
Beware still further how you rudely touch; 
Don't clutch his carpus in your icy fist, 
But warm your fingers ere you take the 

wrist. 
If the poor victim needs must be percussed, 
Don't make an anvil of his aching bust; 
(Doctors exist within a hundred miles 
Who thump a thorax as they 'd hammer 

piles;) 
If you must listen to his doubtful chest, 
Catch the essentials, and ignore the rest. 
Spare him; the sufferer wants of you and 

art 
A track to steer by, not a finished chart. 
So of your questions : don't in mercy try 



To pump your patient absolutely dry ; 
He 's not a mollusk squirming in a dish, 
You 're not Agassiz, and he 's not a fish. 

And last, not least, in each perplexing case, 
Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face; 
Not always smiling, but at least serene, 
When grief and anguish cloud the anxious 

scene. 
Each look, each movement, every word and 

tone, 
Should tell your patient you are all his 

own; 
Not the mere artist, purchased to attend, 
But the warm, ready, self-forgetting friend, 
Whose genial visit in itself combines 
The best of cordials, tonics, anodynes. 

Such is the visit that from day to day 
Sheds o'er my chamber its benignant ray. 
I give his health, who never cared to claim 
Her babbling homage from the tongue of 

Fame; 
Unmoved by praise, he stands by all con- 

fest, 
The truest, noblest, wisest, kindest, best. 



THE TWO ARMIES 

[Written for and read at a meeting of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society in 1858. 

In printing these verses in the Autocrat, 
where they are referred to the " Professor," the 
poet says : " He introduced them with a few 
remarks, he told me, of which the only one he 
remembered was this : that he had rather 
write a single line which one among" them 
should think worth remembering than set them 
all laughing with a string of epigrams."] 

As Life's unending column pours, 
Two marshalled hosts are seen, — 

Two armies on the trampled shores 
That Death flows black between. 

One marches to the drum-beat's roll, 
The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, 

And bears upon a crimson scroll, 
" Our glory is to slay." 

One moves in silence by the stream, 
With sad, yet watchful eyes. 

Calm as the patient planet's gleam 
That walks the clouded skies. 



6o 



MEDICAL POEMS 



Along its front no sabres shine, 

No blood-red pennons wave ; 
Its banner bears the single line, 

"Our duty is to save." 

For those no death-bed's lingering shade ; 

At Honor's trumpet-call, 
With knitted brow and lifted blade 

In Glory's arms they fall. 

For these no clashing falchions bright, 

No stirring battle-cry ; 
The bloodless stabber calls by night, — 

Each answers, " Here am I ! " 

For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, 

The builder's marble piles, 
The anthems pealing o'er their dust 

Through long cathedral aisles. 

For these the blossom- sprinkled turf 

That floods the lonely graves 
When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf 

In flowery-foaming waves. 

Two paths lead upward from below, 

And angels wait above, 
Who count each burning life-drop's flow, 

Each falling tear of Love. 

Though from the Hero's bleeding breast 

Her pulses Freedom drew, 
Though the white lilies in her crest 

Sprang from that scarlet dew, — 

While Valor's haughty champions wait 

Till all their scars are shown, 
Love walks unchallenged through the gate, 

To sit beside the Throne ! 



THE STETHOSCOPE SONG 

A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD 

There was a young man in Boston town, 
He bought him a stethoscope nice and 
new, 
All mounted and finished and polished 
down, 
With an ivory cap and a stopper too. 

It happened a spider within did crawl, 
And spun him a web of ample size, 

Wherein there chanced one day to fall 
A couple of very imprudent flies. 



The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue, 
The second was smaller, and thin and 
long ; 

So there was a concert between the two, 
Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. 

Now being from Paris but recently, 

This fine young man would show his skill ; 

And so they gave him, his hand to try, 
A hospital patient extremely ill. 

Some said that his liver was short of bile, 
And some that his heart was over size, 

While some kept arguing, all the while, 
He was crammed with tubercles up to his 
eyes. 

This fine young man then up stepped he, 
And all the doctors made a pause ; 

Said he, The man must die, you see, 
By the fifty-seventh of Louis's laws. 

But since the case is a desperate one, 
To explore his chest it may be well ; 

For if he should die and it were not done, 
You know the autopsy would not tell. 

Then out his stethoscope he took, 
And on it placed his curious ear ; 

Mon Dieu ! said he, with a knowing look, 
Why, here is a sound that 's mighty 
queer ! 

The bourdonnement is very clear, — 
Amphoric buzzing, as I 'm alive ! 

Five doctors took their turn to hear ; 
Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. 

There 's empyema beyond a doubt ; 

We '11 plunge a trocar in his side. 
The diagnosis was made out, — 

They tapped the patient ; so he died. 

Now such as hate new-fashioned toys 
Began to look extremely glum ; 

They said that rattles were made for boys, 
And vowed that his buzzing was all a 
hum. 

There was an old lady had long been sick, 
And what was the matter none did 
know : 
Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was 
quick ; 
To her this knowing youth must go. 



EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL POEM 



61 



So there the nice old lady sat, 

With phials and boxes all in a row ; 

She asked the young doctor what he was 
at, 
To thump her and tumble her ruffles 



Now, when the stethoscope came out, 
The flies began to buzz and whiz : 

Oh, ho ! the matter is clear, no doubt ; 
An aneurism there plainly is. 

The bruit de rape and the bruit de scie 
And the bruit de diable are all combined; 

How happy Bouillaud would be, 
If he a case like this could find ! 

Now, when the neighboring doctors found 
A case so rare had been descried, 

They every day her ribs did pound 
In squads of twenty ; so she died. 

Then six young damsels, slight and frail, 
Received this kind young doctor's cares; 

They all were getting slim and pale, 
And short of breath on mounting stairs. 

They all made rhymes with " sighs " and 
" skies," 
And loathed their puddings and buttered 
rolls, 
And dieted, much to their friends' surprise, 
On pickles and pencils and chalk and 
coals. 

So fast their little hearts did bound, 

The frightened insects buzzed the more ; 

So over all their chests he found 
The rede sifflant and the rale sonore. 

He shook his head. There 's grave dis- 
ease, — 

I greatly fear you all must die; 
A slight post-mortem, if you please, 

Surviving friends would gratify. 

The six young damsels wept aloud, 
Which so prevailed on six young men 

That each his honest love avowed, 
Whereat they all got well again. 

This poor young man was all aghast; 

The price of stethoscopes came down; 
And so he was reduced at last 

To practise in a country town. 



The doctors being very sore, 

A stethoscope they did devise 
That had a rammer to clear the bore, 

With a knob at the end to kill the flies. 

Now use your ears, all you that can, 
But don't forget to mind your eyes, 

Or you may be cheated, like this young 
man, 
By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. 



EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL 
POEM 

THE STABILITY OF SCIENCE 

The feeble sea-birds, blinded in the 
storms, 
On some tall lighthouse dash their little 

forms, 
And the rude granite scatters for their 

pains 
Those small deposits that were meant for 

brains. 
Yet the proud fabric in the morning's sun 
Stands all unconscious of the mischief done ; 
Still the red beacon pours its evening rays 
For the lost pilot with as full a blaze, — 
Nay, shines, all radiance, o'er the scattered 

fleet 
Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet. 

I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims 
To call our kind by such ungentle names ; 
Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, 
Think of their doom, ye simple, and be- 
ware ! 
See where aloft its hoary forehead rears 
The towering pride of twice a thousand 

years ! 
Far, far below the vast incumbent pile 
Sleeps the gray rock from art's iEgean isle 
Its massive courses, circling as they rise, 
Swell from the waves to mingle with the 

skies ; 
There every quarry lends its marble spoil, 
And clustering ages blend their common 

toil; 
The Greek, the Roman, reared its ancient 

walls, 
The silent .Arab arched its mystic halls ; 
In that fair niche, by countless billows 

laved, 
Trace the deep lines that Sydenham en- 
graved ; 



62 



MEDICAL POEMS 



On yon broad front that breasts the chang- 
ing swell, 

Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hun- 
ter fell; 

By that square buttress look where Louis 
stands, 

The stone yet warm from his uplifted 
hands ; 

And say, Science, shall thy life-blood 
freeze, 

When fluttering folly flaps on walls like 
these ? 

A PORTRAIT 

Thoughtful in youth, but not austere in 
age; 
Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a 



Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer, 
And only just when seemingly severe; 
So gently blending courtesy and art 
That wisdom's lips seemed borrowing 

friendship's heart. 
Taught by the sorrows that his age had 

known 
In others' trials to forget his own, 
As hour by hour his lengthened day de- 
clined, 
A sweeter radiance lingered o'er his mind. 
Cold were the lips that spoke his early 

praise, 
And hushed the voices of his morning days, 
Yet the same accents dwelt on every 

tongue, 
And love renewing kept him ever young. 

A SENTIMENT 

'O plos [ipaxvs, — life is but a song; 

'H rexvv /J-aKp-f], — art is wondrous long; 

Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair, 

And Patience smiles, though Genius may 
despair. 

Give us but knowledge, though by slow 
degrees, 

And blend our toil with moments bright as 
these ; 

Let Friendship's accents cheer our doubt- 
ful way, 

And Love's pure planet lend its guiding 
ray,— 

Our tardy Art shall wear an angel's wings, 

And life shall lengthen with the joy it 
brine's ! 



A POEM 

FOR THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN 
MEDICAL ASSOCIATION AT NEW YORK, 

MAY 5, 1853 

I hold a letter in my hand, — 

A flattering letter, more 's the pity, — 
By some contriving junto planned, 

And signed per order of Committee. 
It touches every tenderest spot, — 

My patriotic predilections, 
My well-known — something — don't ask 
what, — 

My poor old songs, my kind affections. 

They make a feast on Thursday next, 

And hope to make the feasters merry; 
They own they're something more per- 
plexed 

For poets than for port and sherry. 
They want the men of — (word torn out) ; 

Our friends will come with anxious faces, 
(To see our blankets off, no doubt, 

And trot us out and show our paces.) 

They hint that papers by the score 

Are rather musty kind of rations, — 
They don't exactly mean a bore, 

But only trying to the patience; 
That such as — you know who I mean — 

Distinguished for their — what d' ye 
call 'em — 
Should bring the dews of Hippocrene 

To sprinkle on the faces solemn. 

— The same old story : that 's the chaff 

To catch the birds that sing the ditties; 
Upon my soul, it makes me laugh 

To read these letters from Committees ! 
They 're all so loving and so fair, — 

All for your sake such kind compunction ; 
'T would save your carriage half its wear 

To touch its wheels with such an unc- 
tion ! 

Why, who am I, to lift me here 

And beg such learned folk to listen, 
To ask a smile, or coax a tear 

Beneath these stoic lids to glisten ? 
As well might some arterial thread 

Ask the whole frame to feel it gushing, 
While throbbing fierce from heel to head 

The vast aortic tide was rushing. 



RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 



63 



As well some hair-like nerve might strain 

To set its special streamlet going, 
While through the myriad-channelled 
brain 

The burning flood of thought was flowing; 
Or trembling fibre strive to keep 

The springing haunches gathered shorter, 
While the scourged racer, leap on leap, 

"Was stretching through the last hot 
quarter ! 

Ah me ! you take the bud that came 

Self-sown in your poor garden's borders, 
And hand it to the stately dame 

That florists breed for, all she orders. 
She thanks you, — it was kindly meant — 

(^4 pale affair, not worth the keeping,) — 
Good morning; and your bud is sent 

To join the tea-leaves used for sweeping. 

Not always so, kind hearts and true, — 

For such I know are round me beating; 
Is not the bud I offer you, 

Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting, 
Pale though its outer leaves may be, 

Rose-red in all its inner petals ? — 
Where the warm life we cannot see — 

The life of love that gave it — settles. 

We meet from regions far away, 

Like rills from distant mountains stream- 
ing; 
The sun is on Francisco's bay, 

O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming; 
While summer girds the still bayou 

In chains of bloom, her bridal token, 
Monadnock sees the sky grow blue, 

His crystal bracelet yet unbroken. 

Yet Nature bears the selfsame heart 

Beneath her russet-mantled bosom 
As where, with burning lips apart, 

She breathes and white magnolias blos- 
som; 
The selfsame founts her chalice fill 

With showery sunlight running over, 
On fiery plain and frozen hill, 

On myrtle-beds and fields of clover. 

I give you Home .' its crossing lines 

United in one golden suture, 
And showing every day that shines 

The present growing to the future, — 
A flag that bears a hundred stars 

In one bright ring, with love for centre, 



Fenced round with white and crimson bars 
No prowling treason dares to enter ! 

O brothers, home may be a word 

To make affection's living treasure, 
The wave an angel might have stirred, 

A stagnant pool of selfish pleasure ; 
Home ! It is where the day-star springs 

And where the evening sun reposes, 
Where'er the eagle spreads his wings, 

From northern pines to southern roses ! 

A SENTIMENT 

[Distributed among- the members gathered 
at the meeting' of the American Medical As- 
sociation, in Philadelphia, May 1, 1855.] 

A triple health to Friendship, Science, 
Art, 
From heads and hands that own a common 

heart ! 
Each in its turn the others' willing slave, 
Each in its season strong to heal and save. 

Friendship's blind service, in the hour of 

need, 
Wipes the pale face, and lets the victim 

bleed. 
Science must stop to reason and explain; 
Art claps his finger on the streaming vein. 

But Art's brief memory fails the hand at 

last ; 
Then Science lifts the flambeau of the past. 
When both their equal impotence deplore, 
When Learning sighs, and Skill can do no 

more, 
The tear of Friendship pours its heavenly 

balm, 
And soothes the pang no anodyne may 

calm ! 



RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 

AX AFTER-DIXXER PRESCRIPTIOX TAKEX 
BY THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SO- 
CIETY, AT THEIR MEETIXG HELD MAY 
25, 1870 

CAXTO FIRST 

Old Rip Van Winkle had a grandson 

Rip, 
Of the paternal block a genuine chip, — 



6 4 



MEDICAL POEMS 



A lazy, sleepy, curious kind of chap ; 
He, like bis grandsire, took a mighty nap, 
Whereof the story I propose to tell 
In two brief cantos, if you listen well. 

The times were hard when Rip to man- 
hood grew; 
They always will be when there 's work to 

do. 
He tried at farming, — found it rather 

slow, — 
And then at teaching — what he did n't 

know; 
Then took to hanging round the tavern 

bars, 
To frequent toddies and long-nine cigars, 
Till Dame Van Winkle, out of patience, 

vexed 
With preaching homilies, having for their 

text 
A mop, a broomstick, aught that might 

avail 
To point a moral or adorn a tale, 
Exclaimed, " I have it ! Now, then, Mr. 

V. ! 
He 's good for something, — make him an 

M. D. ! " 

The die was cast; the youngster was 
content ; 

They packed his shirts and stockings, and 
he went. 

How hard he studied it were vain to tell ; 

He drowsed through Wistar, nodded over 
Bell, 

Slept sound with Cooper, snored aloud on 
Good; 

Heard heaps of lectures, — doubtless under- 
stood, — 

A constant listener, for he did not fail 

To carve his name on every bench and rail. 

Months grew to years ; at last he counted 
three, 
And Rip Van Winkle found himself M. D. 
Illustrious title ! in a gilded frame 
He set the sheepskin with his Latin name, 
Ripum Van Winklum, quem we — scimus 

— know 
Idoneum esse — to do so and so. 
He hired an office ; soon its walls displayed 
His new diploma and his stock in trade, 
A mighty arsenal to subdue disease, 
Of various names, whereof I mention these : 
Lancets and bougies, great and little squirt, 



Rhubarb and Senna, Snakeroot, Thorough- 
wort, 
Ant. Tart., Vin. Colch., Pil. Cochise, and 

Black Drop, 
Tinctures of Opium, Gentian, Henbane, 

Hop, 
Pulv. Ipecacuanhse, which for lack 
Of breath to utter men call Ipecac, 
Camphor and Kino, Turpentine, Tolu, 
Cubebs, " Copeevy, " Vitriol, — white and 

blue, — 
Fennel and Flaxseed, Slippery Elm and 

Squill, 
And roots of Sassafras, and " Sassaf'rill," 
Brandy, — for colics, — Pinkroot, death on 

worms, — 
Valerian, calmer of hysteric squirms, 
Musk, Assafcetida, the resinous gum 
Named from its odor, — well, it does smell 

some, — 
Jalap, that works not wisely, but too well, 
Ten pounds of Bark and six of Calomel. 

For outward griefs he had an ample store, 
Some twenty jars and gallipots, or more: 
Ceratum simplex — housewives oft compile 
The same at home, and call it " wax and 

ile;" 
Unguentum resinosum — change its name, 
The " drawing salve " of many an ancient 

dame ; 
Argenti Nitras, also Spanish flies, 
Whose virtue makes the water-bladders 

rise — 
(Some say that spread upon a toper's skin 
They draw no water, only rum or gin) ; 
Leeches, sweet vermin ! don't they charm 

the sick ? 
And Sticking-plaster — how it hates to 

stick ! 
Emplastrum, Ferri — ditto Picis, Pitch ; 
Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the — 

which, 
Scabies or Psora, is thy chosen name 
Since Hahnemann's goose-quill scratched 

thee into fame, 
Proved thee the source of every nameless 

Whose sole specific is a moonshine pill, 
Till saucy Science, with a quiet grin, 
Held up the Acarus, crawling on a pin ? 
— Mountains have labored and have 

brought forth mice : 
The Dutchman's theory hatched a brood of 

— twice 



RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 



65 



I Ve wellnigh said them — words unfitting 

quite 
For these fair prechicts ami for ears polite. 

The surest foot may chance at last to 
slip, 

Aud so at length it proved with Doctor 
Rip. 

Oue full-sized bottle stood upon the shelf, 

Which held the medicine that he took him- 
self ; 

Whate'er the reason, it must be confessed 

He filled that bottle oftener than the rest; 

What drug it held I don't presume to 
know — 

The gilded label said " Elixir Pro." 

One day the Doctor found the bottle 
fall, 

And, being thirsty, took a vigorous pull, 
Put back the " Elixir " where 't was al- 
ways found, 
And had old Dobbin saddled and brought 

round. 
— You know those old-time rhubarb-colored 

nags 
That carried Doctors and their saddle- 

_ bags ; 
Sagacious beasts ! they stopped at every 

place 
Where blinds were shut — knew every 

patient's case — 
Looked up and thought — The baby 's in a 

fit — 
That won't last long — he '11 soon be 

through with it; 
But shook their heads before the knockered 

door 
Where some old lady told the story o'er 
Whose endless stream of tribulation flows 
For gastric griefs and peristaltic woes. 

What jack-o'-lantern led him from his 

way, 
And where it led him, it were hard to 

say; 
Enough that wandering many a weary mile 
Through paths the mountain sheep trod 

single file, 
O'ercome by feelings such as patients 

know 
Who dose too freely with " Elixir Pro.," 
He tumbl — dismounted, slightly in a heap, 
And lay, promiscuous, lapped in balmy 

sleep. 



Night followed night, and day succeeded 

day, 
But snoring still the slumbering Doctor 

lay. 
Poor Dobbin, starving, thought upon his 

stall, 
And straggled homeward, saddle-bags and 

all. 
The village people hunted all around, 
But Rip was missing, — never could be 

found. 
"Drownded," they guessed; — for more 

than half a year 
The pouts aud eels did taste uncommon 

queer; 
Some said of apple-brandy — other some 
Found a strong flavor of New England rum. 

Why can't a fellow hear the fiue things 
said 
About a fellow when a fellow 's dead ? 
The best of doctors — so the press de- 
clared — 
A public blessing while his life was spared, 
True to his country, bounteous to the poor, 
In all things temperate, sober, just, and 

pure ; 
The best of husbands ! echoed Mrs. Van, 
And set her cap to catch another man. 

So ends this Canto — if it 's quantum stiff., 
We '11 just stop here and say we 've had 

enough, 
And leave poor Rip to sleep for thirty 

years ; 
I grind the organ — if you lend your ears 
To hear my second Canto, after that 
We '11 send around the monkey with the 

hat. 

CAXTO SECOND 

So thirty years had passed — but not a 

word 
In all that time of Rip was ever heard; 
The world wagged on — it never does go 

back — 
The widow Van was now the widow Mac — 
France was an Empire — Andrew J. was 

dead, 
And Abraham L. was reigning in his stead. 
Four murderous years had passed in savage 

strife, 
Yet still the rebel held his bloody knife. 
— At last one morning — who forgets the 

day 



66 



MEDICAL POEMS 



When the black cloud of war dissolved 



away 



9 



The joyous tidings spread o'er laud and 

sea, 
Rebellion doue for ! Grant has captured 

Lee! 
Up every flagstaff sprang the Stars and 

Stripes — 
Out rushed the Extras wild with mammoth 

types — 
Down went the laborer's hod, the school- 
boy's book — 
" Hooraw ! " he cried, " the rebel army 's 

took ! " 
Ah ! what a time ! the folks all mad with 

joy: 
Each fond, pale mother thinking of her 

boy; 
Old gray-haired fathers meeting — "Have 

— you — heard ? " 
And then a choke — and not another word ; 
Sisters all smiling — maidens, not less dear, 
In trembling poise between a smile and 

tear; 
Poor Bridget thinking how she '11 stuff the 

plums 
Li that big cake for Johnny when he comes ; 
Cripples afoot ; rheumatics on the jump; 
Old girls so loving they could hug the 

pump ; 
Guns going bang ! from every fort and 

ship ; 
They banged so loud at last they wakened 

Rip. 

I spare the picture, how a man appears 
Who 's been asleep a score or two of years ; 
You all have seen it to perfection done 
By Joe Van Wink — I mean Rip Jefferson. 
Well, so it was ; old Rip at last came back, 
Claimed his old wife — the present widow 

Mac — 
Had his old sign regilded, and began 
To practise physic on the same old plan. 

Some weeks went by — it was not long 

to wait — 
And " please to call " grew frequent on the 

slate. 
He had, in fact, an ancient, mildewed air, 
A long gray beard, a plenteous lack of 

hair, — 
The musty look that always recommends 
Your good old Doctor to his ailing friends. 
— Talk of your science ! after all is said 



There 's nothing like a bare and shiny head ; 
Age lends the graces that are sure to please ; 
Folks want their Doctors mouldy, like their 
cheese. 

So Rip began to look at people's tongues 
And thump their briskets (called it " sound 

their lungs"), 
Brushed up his knowledge smartly as he 

could, 
Read in old Cullen and in Doctor Good. 
The town was healthy ; for a month or two 
He gave the sexton little work to do. 

About the time when dog-day heats be- 
gin? 

The summer's usual maladies set in ; 

With autumn evenings dysentery came, 

And dusky typhoid lit his smouldering 
flame; 

The blacksmith ailed, the carpenter was 
down, 

And half the children sickened in the town. 

The sexton's face grew shorter than be- 
fore — 

The sexton's wife a brand-new bonnet 
wore — 

Things looked quite serious — Death had 
got a grip 

On old and young, in spite of Doctor Rip. 

And now the Squire was taken with a 
chill — 

Wife gave " hot-drops " — at night an In- 
dian pill; 

Next morning, feverish — bedtime, getting 
worse — 

Out of his head — began to rave and curse; 

The Doctor sent for — double quick he 
came : 

Ant. Tart. gran, duo, and repeat the same 

If no et cetera. Third day — nothing new ; 

Percussed his thorax till 't was black and 
blue — 

Lung-fever threatening — something of the 
sort — 

Out with the lancet — let him bleed — a 
. quart — 

Ten leeches next — then blisters to his side; 

Ten grains of calomel ; just then he died. 

The Deacon next required the Doctor's 
care — 
Took cold by sitting in a draught of air — 
Pains in the back, but what the matter is 



RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. 



67 



Not quite so clear, — wife calls it " rheu- 

matiz." 
Rubs back with flannel — gives him some- 
thing hot — 
"Ah ! " says the Deacon, " that goes nigh 

the spot." 
Next day a rigor — " Run, my little man, 
And say the Deacon sends for Doctor Van." 
The Doctor came — percussion as before, 
Thumping and banging till his ribs were 

sore — 
" Right side the flattest " — then more vig- 
orous raps — 
" Fever — that 's certain — pleurisy, per- 
haps. 
A quart of blood will ease the pain, no 

doubt, 
Ten leeches next will help to suck it out, 
Then clap a blister on the painful part — 
But first two grains of Antimonium Tart. 
Last with a dose of cleansing calomel 
Unload the portal system — (that sounds 
well !) " 

But when the selfsame remedies were 

tried, 
As all the village knew, the Squire had 

died ; 
The neighbors hinted: " This will never do; 
He 's killed the Squire — he '11 kill the 

Deacon too." 

Now when a doctor's patients are per- 
plexed, 
A consultation comes in order next — 
You know what that is ? In a certain place 
Meet certain doctors to discuss a case 
And other matters, such as weather, crops, 
Potatoes, pumpkins, lager-beer, and hops. 
For what 's the use ! — there 's little to be 

said, 
Nine times in ten your man 's as good as 

dead ; 
At best a talk (the secret to disclose) 
Where three men guess and sometimes one 
man knows. 

The counsel summoned came without de- 
lay — 

Young Doctor Green and shrewd old Doc- 
tor Gray — 

They heard the story — " Bleed ! " says 
Doctor Green, 

" That 's downright murder ! cut his throat, 
you mean ! 



Leeches ! the reptiles ! Why, for pity's 
sake, 

Not try an adder or a rattlesnake ? 

Blisters ! Why bless you, they 're against 
the law — 

It 's rank assault and battery if they draw ! 

Tartrate of Antimony ! shade of Luke, 

Stomachs turn pale at thought of such re- 
buke ! 

The portal system ! What 's the man 
about ? 

Unload your nonsense ! Calomel 's played 
out! 

You 've been asleep — you 'd better sleep 
away 

Till some one calls you." 

" Stop ! " says Doctor Gray — 
" The story is you slept for thirty years; 
With brother Green, I own that it appears 
You must have slumbered most amazing 

sound; 
But sleep once more till thirty years come 

round, 
You '11 find the lancet in its honored place, 
Leeches and blisters rescued from disgrace, 
Your drugs redeemed from fashion's pass- 
ing scorn, 
And counted safe to give to babes unborn." 

Poor sleepy Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D., 
A puzzled, serious, saddened man was he ; 
Home from the Deacon's house he plodded 

slow 
And filled one bumper of " Elixir Pro." 
" Good-by," he faltered, " Mrs. Van, my 

dear ! 
I'm going to sleep, but wake me once a 

year; 
I don't like bleaching in the frost and dew, 
I '11 take the barn, if all the same to you. 
Just once a year — remember ! no mistake! 
Cry, ' Rip Van Winkle ! time for you to 

wake ! ' 
Watch for the week in May when laylocks 

blow, 
For then the Doctors meet, and I must 

go." 

Just once a year the Doctor's worthy 

dame 
Goes to the barn and shouts her husband's 

name ; 
" Come, Rip Van Winkle ! " (giving him 

a shake) 



68 



MEDICAL POEMS 



" Rip ! Rip Van Winkle ! time for you to 

wake ! 
Laylocks in blossom ! 't is the month of 

May — 
The Doctors' meeting is this blessed day, 
And come what will, you know I heard you 

swear 
You 'd never miss it, but be always there ! " 

And so it is, as every year comes round 

Old Rip Van Winkle here is always found. 

You '11 quickly know him by his mildewed 
air, 

The hayseed sprinkled through his scanty 
hair, 

The lichens growing on his rusty suit — 

I 've seen a toadstool sprouting on his 
boot — 

— Who says I lie ? Does any man pre- 
sume ? — 

Toadstool ! No matter — call it a mush- 
room. 

Where is his seat? He moves it every 
year; 

But look, you '11 find him, — he is always 
here, — 

Perhaps you '11 track him by a whiff you 
know — 

A certain flavor of " Elixir Pro." 

Now, then, I give you — as you seem to 

think 
We can give toasts without a drop to 

drink — 
Health to the mighty sleeper, — long live 

he ! 
Our brother Rip, M. M. S. S., M. D. ! 



POEM 

READ AT THE DINNER GIVEN TO THE 
AUTHOR BY THE MEDICAL PROFES- 
SION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 
APRIL 12, 1883. 

Have I deserved your kindness ? Nay, 

my friends, 
While the fair banquet its illusion lends 
Let me believe it, though the blood may 

rush 
And to my cheek recall the maiden blush 
That o'er it flamed with momentary blaze 
When first I heard the honeyed words of 

praise; 



Let me believe it while the roses wear 
Their bloom unwithering in the heated 

air; 
Too soon, too soon, their glowing leaves 

must fall, 
The laughing echoes leave the silent hall, 
Joy drop his garland, turn his empty cup, 
And weary Labor take his burden up, — 
How weighs that burden they can tell 

alone 
Whose dial marks no moment as their own. 

Am I your creditor ? Too well I know 
How Friendship pays the debt it does not 

owe, 
Shapes a poor semblance fondly to its 

mind, 
Adds all the virtues that it fails to find, 
Adorns with graces to its heart's content, 
Borrows from love what nature never 

lent, 
Till what with halo, jewels, gilding, paint, 
The veriest sinner deems himself a saint. 
Thus while you pay these honors as my 

due 
I owe my value's larger part to you, 
And in the tribute of the hour I see 
Not what I am, but what I ought to be. 

Friends of the Muse, to you of right belong 
The first staid footsteps of my square-toed 

song ; 
Full well I know the strong heroic line 
Has lost its fashion since I made it mine; 
But there are tricks old singers will not 

learn, 
And this grave measure still must serve 

my turn. 
So the old bird resumes the selfsame note 
His first young summer wakened in his 

throat ; 
The selfsame tune the old canary sings, 
And all unchanged the bobolink's carol 

rings ; 
When the tired songsters of the day are 

still 
The thrush repeats his long-remembered 

trill; 
Age alters not the crow's persistent caw, 
The Yankee's "Haow," the stammering 

Briton's "Haw;" 
And so the hand that takes the lyre for 

you 
Plays the old tune on strings that once 

were new. 



POEM READ AT THE NEW YORK DINNER 



69 



Nor let the rhymester of the hour deride 
The straight - backed measure with its 

stately stride; 
It gave the mighty voice of Drydeu scope; 
It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of 

Pope; 
Iu Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter 

strain; 
Byron and Campbell wore its clanking 

chain ; 
I smile to listen while the critic's scorn 
Flouts the proud purple kings have nobly 

worn ; 
Bid each new rhymer try his dainty skill 
And mould his frozen phrases as he will; 
We thank the artist for his neat device; 
The shape is pleasing, though the stuff is 

ice. 

Fashions will change — the new costume 
alkires, 

Unfading still the better type endures; 

While the slashed doublet of the cavalier 

Gave the old knight the pomp of chanticleer, 

Our last-hatched dandy with his glass and 
stick 

Recalls the semblance of a new-born 
chick ; 

(To match the model he is aiming at 

He ought to wear an eggshell for a 
hat;) — 

Which of these objects would a painter 
choose, 

And which Velasquez or Van Dyck re- 
fuse ? 

When your land summons reached my 

calm retreat, 
Who are the friends, I questioned, I shall 

meet ? 
Some in young manhood, shivering with 

desire 
To feel the genial warmth of fortune's 

fire, — 
Each with his bellows ready in his hand 
To puff the flame just waiting to be 

fanned; 
Some heads half-silvered, some with snow- 
white hair, — 
A crown ungarnished glistening here and 

there, 
The mimic moonlight gleaming on the 

scalps 
As evening's empress lights the shining 

Alps; 



But count the crowds that throng your 

festal scenes, 
How few that knew the century in its 

teens ! 

Save for the lingering handful fate be- 
friends, 

Life's busy day the Sabbath decade ends; 

When that is over, how with what remains 

Of nature's outfit, muscle, nerve, and 
brains ? 

Were this a pulpit I should doubtless 
preach, 

Were this a platform I should gravely 
teach, 

But to no solemn duties I pretend 

In my vocation at the table's end; 

So as my answer let me tell instead 

What Landlord Porter — rest his soul! — 
once said. 

A feast it was that none might scorn to 
share ; 

Cambridge and Concord's demigods were 
there, — 

"And who were they?" You know as 
well as I 

The stars long glittering in our Eastern 
sky, — 

The names that blazon our provincial 
scroll 

Ring round the world with Britain's drum- 
beat roll ! 

Good was the dinner, better was the talk; 

Some whispered, devious was the home- 
ward walk; 

The story came from some reporting spy, — 

They lie, those fellows, — oh, how they do 
lie! 

Not ours those foot-tracks in the new-fallen 
snow, — 

Poets and sages never zigzagged so ! 

Now Landlord Porter, grave, concise, se- 
vere, 
Master, nay, monarch in his proper sphere, 
Though to belles-lettres he pretended not, 
Lived close to Harvard, so knew what was 

what ; 
And having bards, philosophers, and such, 
To eat his dinner, put the finest touch 
His art could teach, those learned mouths 

to fill 
With the best proofs of gustatory skill; 



7o 



MEDICAL POEMS 



And finding wisdom plenty at his board, 
Wit, science, learning, all bis guests bad 

stored, 
By way of contrast, ventured to produce, 
To please their palates, an inviting goose. 
Better it were the company should starve 
Than hands unskilled that goose attempt to 

carve ; 
None but the master-artist shall assail 
The bird that turns the mightiest surgeon 

pale. 

One voice arises from the banquet-hall. 
The landlord answers to the pleading call; 
Of stature tall, sublime of port he stands, 
His blade and bident gleaming in his hands ; 
Beneath his glance the strong-knit joints 

relax 
As the weak knees before the headsman's 



And Landlord Porter lifts his glittering 

knife 
As some stout warrior armed for bloody 

strife ; 
All eyes are on him; some in whispers ask, 
What man is he who dares this dangerous 

task? 
When lo ! the triumph of consummate art, 
With scarce a touch the creature drops 

apart ! 
As when the baby in his nurse's lap 
Spills on the carpet a dissected map. 

Then the calm sage, the monarch of the 

lyre, 
Critics and men of science all admire, 
And one whose wisdom I will not impeach, 
Lively, not churlish, somewhat free of 

speech, 
Speaks thus: " Say, master, what of worth 

is left 
In birds like this, of breast and legs be- 
reft ? " 
And Landlord Porter, with uplifted eyes, 
Smiles on the simple querist, and replies: 
" When from a goose you 've taken legs 

and breast, 
Wipe lips, thank God, and leave the poor 
the rest ! " 

Kind friends, sweet friends, I hold it hardly 
fair 

With that same bird your minstrel to com- 
pare, 



Yet in a certain likeness we agree, 
No wrong to him and no offence to me ; 
I take him for the moral he has lent, 
My partner, — to a limited extent. 

When the stern Landlord whom we all 

obey 
Has carved from life its seventh great 

slice away, 
Is the poor fragment left in blank collapse 
A pauper remnant of unvalued scraps ? 

I care not much what Solomon has said, 
Before his time to nobler pleasures dead; 
Poor man ! he needed half a hundred lives 
With such a babbling wilderness of wives ! 
But is there nothing that may well employ 
Life's winter months, — no sunny hour of 

Joy? 

While o'er the fields the howling tempests 

rage, 
The prisoned linnet warbles in its cage; 
When chill November through the forest 

blows, 
The greenhouse shelters the untroubled 

rose; 
Round the high trellis creeping tendrils 

twine, 
And the ripe clusters fill with blameless 

wine ; 
We make the vine forget the winter's cold, 
But how shall age forget its growing old ? 

Though doing right is better than deceit, 
Time is a trickster it is fair to cheat; 
The honest watches ticking in your fobs 
Tell every minute how the rascal robs. 
To clip his forelock and his scythe to hide, 
To lay his hour-glass gently on its side, 
To slip the cards he marked upon the 

shelf 
And deal him others you have marked 

yourself, 
If not a virtue cannot be a sin, 
For the old rogue is sure at last to win. 
What does he leave when life is well-nigh 

spent 
To lap its evening in a calm content ? 
Art, letters, science, these at least befriend 
Our day's brief remnant to its peaceful 

end, — 
Peaceful for him who shows the setting 

sun 
A record worthy of his Lord's Well done ! 



POEM READ AT THE NEW YORK DINNER 



7i 



"When he, the master whom I will not 

name, 
Known to our calling, not unknown to 

fame, 
At life's extremest verge, half conscious 

lay? 

Helpless and sightless, dying day by day, 
His brain, so long with varied wisdom 

fraught, 
Filled with the broken enginery of thought, 
A flitting vision often would illume 
His darkened world, and cheer its deepen- 
ing gloom, — 
A sunbeam struggling through the long 

eclipse, — 
And smiles of pleasure play around his lips. 
He loved the art that shapes the dome and 

spire ; 
The Roman's page, the ring of Byron's 

lyre, 
And oft when fitful memory would return 
To find some fragment in her broken urn, 
Would wake to life some long-forgotten 

hour, 
And lead his thought to Pisa's terraced 

tower, 
Or trace in light before his rayless eye 
The dome-crowned Pantheon printed on 

the sky; 
Then while the view his ravished soul ab- 
sorbs 
And lends a glitter to the sightless orbs, 
The patient watcher feels the stillness 

stirred 
By the faiut murmur of some classic word, 
Or the long roll of Harold's lofty rhyme, 
" Simple, erect, severe, austere, sub- 
lime," — 
Such were the dreams that soothed his 

couch of pain, 
The sweet nepenthe of the worn-out brain. 



Brothers in art, who live for others' needs 
In duty's bondage, mercy's gracious deeds, 
Of all who toil beneath the circling sun 
Whose evening rest than yours more fairly 

won? 
Though many a cloud your struggling 

morn obscures, 
What sunset brings a brighter sky than 

yours ? 

I, who your labors for a while have shared, 
New tasks have sought, with new com- 
panions fared, 
For nature's servant far too often seen 
A loiterer by the waves of Hippocrene; 
Yet round the earlier friendship twines the 

new, 
My footsteps wander, but my heart is 

true, 
Nor e'er forgets the living or the dead 
Who trod with me the paths where science 
led. 

How can I tell you, O my loving friends ! 
What light, what warmth, your joyous 

welcome lends 
To life's late hour ? Alas ! my song is 

sung, 
Its fading accents falter on my tongue. 
Sweet friends, if, shrinking in the banquet's 

blaze, 
Your blushing guest must face the breath 

of praise, 
Speak not too well of one who scarce will 

know 
Himself transfigured in its roseate glow; 
Say kindly of him what is, chiefly, true, 
Remembering always he belongs to you; 
Deal with him as a truant, if you will, 
But claim him, keep him, call him brother 

still ! 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 

1849-1861 



PROLOGUE 

The piping of our slender, peaceful reeds 
Whispers uncared for while the trumpets 

bray; 
Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play 
Beats time but to the tread of marching 

deeds, 
Following the mighty van that Freedom 

leads, 
Her glorious standard flaming to the day ! 
The crimsoned pavement where a hero 

bleeds 
Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay. 
Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, 

are better worth 
Thau strains that sing the ravished echoes 

dumb. 
Hark ! 't is the loud reverberating drum 
Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock- 
bound North: 
The myriad-handed Future stretches forth 
Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come, — 

we come ! 

Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as 

these 
Were not unsought for, as, in languid 

dreams, 
We lay beside our lotus-feeding streams, 
And nursed our fancies in forgetful ease. 
It matters little if they pall or please, 
Dropping untimely, while the sudden 

gleams 
Glare from the mustering clouds whose 

blackness seems 
Too swollen to hold its lightning from the 

trees. 
Yet, in some lull of passion, when at last 
These calm revolving moons that come and 

. g° — 
Turning our months to years, they creep so 
slow — 



Have brought us rest, the not unwelcome 

past 
May flutter to thee through these leaflets, 

cast 
On the wild winds that all around us blow. 
May 1, 1861. 

AGNES 

The story of Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes 
Surriage is told hi the ballad with a very strict 
adhesion to the facts. These were obtained 
from information afforded me by the Rev. Mr. 
Webster, of Hopkinton, in company with whom 
I visited the Frankland Mansion in that town, 
then standing ; from a very interesting Me- 
moir, by the Rev. Elias Nason, of Medf ord ; 
and from the manuscript diary of Sir Harry, or 
more properly Sir Charles Henry Frankland, 
now in the library of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society. 

At the time of the visit referred to, old 
Julia was living, and on our return we called 
at the house where she resided. 1 Her account 
is little more than paraphrased in the poem. 
If the incidents are treated with a certain lib- 
erality at the close of the fifth part, the essen- 
tial fact that Agnes rescued Sir Harry from the 
ruins after the earthquake, and their subse- 
quent marriage as related, may be accepted as 
literal truth. So with regard to most of the 
trifling details which are given ; they are taken 
from the record. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the Frank- 
land Mansion no longer exists. It was acci- 
dentally burned on the 23d of January, 1858, a 
year or two after the first sketch of this ballad 
was written. A visit to it was like stepping 
out of the century into the years before the 
Revolution. A new house, similar in plan and 
arrangements to the old one, has been built 
upon its site, and the terraces, the clump of 
box, and the lilacs doubtless remain to bear 
witness to the truth of this story. 

1 She was living June 10, 1861, when this ballad was 
published. 



72 



AGNES 



73 



The story, which I have told literally in 
rhyme, has been made the subject of a care- 
fully studied and interesting 1 romance by Mr. 
E. L. Bynner. 



PART I. THE KXIGHT 

The tale I tell is gospel true, 

As all the bookmen know, 
And pilgrims who have strayed to view 

The wrecks still left to show. 

The old, old story, — fair, and young, 
And fond, — and not too wise, — 

That matrons tell, with sharpened tongue, 
To maids with downcast eyes. 

Ah ! maidens err and matrons warn 

Beneath the coldest sky; 
Love lurks amid the tasselled corn 

As in the bearded rye ! 

But who would dream our sober sires 
Had learned the old world's ways, 

And warmed their hearths with lawless fires 
In Shirley's homespun days ? 

'T is like some poet's pictured trance 

His idle rhymes recite, — 
This old Xew England-born romance 

Of Agnes and the Knight; 

Yet, known to all the country round, 

Their home is standing still, 
Between Wachusett's lonely mound 

And Shawmut's threefold hill. 

One hour we rumble on the rail, 

One half-hour guide the rein, 
We reach at last, o'er hill and dale, 

The village on the plain. 

With blackening wall and mossy roof, 
With stained and warping floor, 

A stately mansion stands aloof 
And bars its haughty door. 

This lowlier portal may be tried, 

That breaks the gable wall; 
And lo ! with arches opening wide, 

Sir Harry Frankland's hall ! 

'T was in the second George's day 
They sought the forest shade, 



The knotted trunks they cleared away, 
The massive beams they laid, 

They piled the rock-hewn chimney tall, 
They smoothed the terraced ground, 

They reared the marble-pillared wall 
That fenced the mansion round. 

Far stretched beyond the village bound 

The Master's broad' domain ; 
With page and valet, horse and hound, 

He kept a goodly train. 

And, all the midland county through, 
The ploughman stopped to gaze 

Whene'er his chariot swept in view 
Behind the shining bays, 

With mute obeisance, grave and slow, 

Repaid by nod polite, — 
For such the way with high and low 

Till after Concord fight. 

Nor less to courtly circles know 
That graced the three-hilled town 

With far-off splendors of the Throne, 
And glimmerings from the Crown; 

Wise Phipps, who held the seals of state 

For Shirley over sea; 
Brave Knowles, whose press-gang moved 
of late 

The King Street mob's decree; 

And judges grave, and colonels grand, 

Fair dames and stately men, 
The mighty people of the land, 

The " World" of there and then. 

'T was strange no Chloe's "beauteous 
Form," 

And " Eyes' ccelestial Blew," 
This Strephon of the West could warm, 

No Nymph his Heart subdue ! 

Perchance he wooed as gallants use, ] 

Whom fleeting loves enchain, 
But still unfettered, free to choose, 

Would brook no bridle-rein. 

He saw the fairest of the fair, 

But smiled alike on all ; 
No band his roving foot might snare, 

No ring his hand enthrall. 



74 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



PART II. THE MAIDEN 

Why seeks the knight that rocky cape 

Beyond the Bay of Lynn ? 
What chance his wayward course may shape 

To reach its village inn ? 

No story tells ; whate'er we guess, 

The past lies deaf and still, 
But Fate, who rules to blight or bless, j 

Can lead us where she will. j 

Make way ! Sir Harry's coach and four, 
And liveried grooms that ride ! 

They cross the ferry, touch the shore 
On Winnisimmet's side. 

They hear the wash on Chelsea Beach, — 

The level marsh they pass, 
Where miles on miles the desert reach 

Is rough with bitter grass. 

The shining horses foam and pant, 

And now the smells begin 
Of fishy Swampscott, salt Nahant, 

And leather-scented Lynn. 

Next, on their left, the slender spires 
And glittering vanes that crown ■ 

The home of Salem's frugal sires, 
The old, witch-haunted town. 

So onward, o'er the rugged way 
That runs through rocks and sand, 

Showered by the tempest-driven spray, 
From bays on either hand, 

That shut between their outstretched arms 

The crews of Marblehead, 
The lords of ocean's watery farms, 

Who plough the waves for bread. 

At last the ancient inn appears, 

The spreading elm below, 
Whose flapping sign these fifty years 

Has seesawed to and fro. 

How fair the azure fields in sight 

Before the low-browed inn ! 
The tumbling billows fringe with light 

The crescent shore of Lynn; 

Nahant thrusts outward through the waves 
Her arm of yellow sand, 



And breaks the roaring surge that braves 
The gauntlet on her hand ; 

With eddying whirl the waters lock 

Yon treeless mound forlorn, 
The sharp-winged sea-fowl's breeding-rock, 

That fronts the Spouting Horn; 

Then free the white-sailed shallops glide, 

And wide the ocean smiles, 
Till, shoreward bent, his streams divide 

The two bare Misery Isles. 

The master's silent signal stays 

The wearied cavalcade; 
The coachman reins his smoking bays 

Beneath the elm-tree's shade. 

A gathering on the village green ! 

The cocked-hats crowd to see, 
On legs in ancient velveteen, 

With buckles at the knee. 

A clustering round the tavern-door 

Of square-toed village boys, 
Still wearing, as their grandsires wore, 

The old-world corduroys ! 

A scampering at the " Fountain " inn, — 

A rush of great and small, — 
With hurrying servants' mingled din 

And screaming matron's call ! 

Poor Agnes ! with her work half done 

They caught her unaware; 
As, humbly, like a praying nun, 

She knelt upon the stair; 

Bent o'er the steps, with lowliest mien 

She knelt, but not to pray, — 
Her little hands must keep them clean, 

And wash their stains away. 

A foot, an ankle, bare and white, 
Her girlish shapes betrayed, — 

" Ha ! Nymphs and Graces ! " spoke the 
Knight; 
" Look up, my beauteous Maid ! " 

She turned, — a reddening rose in bud, 

Its calyx half withdrawn, — 
Her cheek on fire with damasked blood 

Of girlhood's glowing dawn ! 



AGNES 



75 



He searched lier features through and 
through, 

As royal lovers look 
On lowly maidens, when they woo 

Without the ring and book. 

"Come hither, Fair one ! Here, my Sweet ! 

Nay, prithee, look not down ! 
Take this to shoe those little feet," — 

He tossed a silver crown. 

A sudden paleness struck her brow, — 

A swifter blush succeeds ; 
It burns her cheek; it kindles now 

Beneath her golden beads. 

She flitted, but the glittering eye 

Still sought the lovely face. 
Who was she ? What, and whence ? and 
why 

Doomed to such menial place ? 

A skipper's daughter, — so they said, — 

Left orphan by the gale 
That cost the fleet of Marblehead 

And Gloucester thirty sail. 

Ah ! many a lonely home is found 

Along the Esses shore, 
That cheered its goodman outward bound, 

And sees his face no more ! 

" Xot so," the matron whispered, — " sure 

Xo orphan girl is she, — 
The Surriage folk are deadly poor 

Since Edward left the sea, 

" And Mary, with her growing brood, 

Has work enough to do 
To find the children clothes and food 

With Thomas, John, and Hugh. 

" This girl of Mary's, growing tall, — 
(Just turned her sixteenth year,) — 

To earn her bread and help them all, 
Would work as housemaid here." 

So Agnes, with her golden beads, 

And naught beside as dower, 
Grew at the wayside with the weeds, 

Herself a garden-flower. 

'T was strange, 't was sad, — so fresh, so 
fair ! 
Thus Pitv's voice be^an. 



Such grace ! an angel's shape and air ! 
The half-heard whisper ran. 

For eyes could see in George's time, 

As now in later days, 
And lips could shape, in prose and rhyme, 

The honeyed breath of praise. 

Xo time to woo ! The train must go 

Long ere the sun is down, 
To reach, before the night-winds blow, 

The many-steepled town. 

'T is midnight, — street and square are 
still; 

Dark roll the whispering waves 
That lap the piers beneath the hill 

Ridged thick with ancient graves. 

Ah, gentle sleep ! thy hand will smooth 

The weary couch of pain, 
When all thy poppies fail to soothe 

The lover's throbbing brain ! 

'T is morn, — the orange-mantled sun 
Breaks through the fading gray, 

And long and loud the Castle gun 
Peals o'er the glistening bay. 

" Thank God 't is day ! " With eager eye 

He hails the morning shine: — ^ 
"If art can win, or gold can buy,,) 
^ The maiden shall be mine ! " y 



PART III. THE CONQUEST 

" Who saw this hussy when she came ? 

What is the wench, and who ? " 
They whisper. Agnes — is her name ? 

Pray what has she to do ? 

The housemaids parley at the gate, 

The scullions on the stair, 
And in the footmen's grave debate 

The butler deigns to share. 

Black Dinah, stolen when a child, 

And sold on Boston pier, 
Grown up in service, petted, spoiled, 

Speaks in the coachman's ear: 

" What, all this household at his will ? 

And all are yet too few ? 
More servants, and more servants still, 

This pert young madam too ! " 



76 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



" Servant ! fine servant ! " laughed aloud 


A thoughtful calm, a quiet grace 


The man of coach and steeds; 


In every movement shown, 


" She looks too fair, she steps too proud, 


Reveal her moulded for the place 


This girl with golden beads ! 


She may not call her own. 


" I tell you, you may fret and frown, 


And, save that on her youthful brow 


And call her what you choose, 


There broods a shadowy care, 


You '11 find my Lady in her gown, 


No matron sealed with holy vow 


Your Mistress in her shoes ! " 


In all the land so fair ! 


Ah, gentle maidens, free from blame, 




God grant you never know 


PART IV. THE RESCUE 


The little whisper, loud with shame, 




That makes the world your foe ! 


A ship comes foaming up the bay, 




Along the pier she glides; 


Why tell the lordly flatterer's art, 


Before her furrow melts away, 


That won the maiden's ear, — 


A courier mounts and rides. 


The fluttering of the frightened heart, 




The blush, the smile, the tear ? 


" Haste, Haste, post Haste ! " the letters 




bear ; 


Alas ! it were the saddening tale 


" Sir Harry Frankland, These." 


That every language knows, — 


Sad news to tell the loving pair ! 


The wooing wind, the yielding sail, 


The knight must cross the seas. 


The sunbeam and the rose. 






" Alas ! we part ! " — the lips that spoke 


And now the gown of sober stuff 


Lost all their rosy red, 


Has changed to fair brocade, 


As when a crystal cup is broke, 


With broidered hem, and hanging cuff, 


And all its wine is shed. 


And flower of silken braid ; 


\ 




" Nay, droop not thus, — where'er," he 


And clasped around her blanching wrist 


cried, 


A jewelled bracelet shines, 


" I go by land or sea, 


Her flowing tresses' massive twist 


My love, my life, my joy, my pride, 


A glittering net confines ; 


Thy place is still by me ! " 


And mingling with their truant wave 


Through town and city, far and wide, 


A fretted chain is hung; 


Their wandering feet have strayed, 


But ah ! the gift her mother gave, — 


From Alpine lake to ocean tide, 


Its beads are all unstrung ! 


And cold Sierra's shade. 


Her place is at the master's board, 


At length they see the waters gleam 


Where none disputes her claim; 


Amid the fragrant bowers 


She walks beside the mansion's lord, 


Where Lisbon mirrors in the stream 


His bride in all but name. 


Her belt of ancient towers. 


The busy tongues have ceased to talk, 


Red is the orange on its bough, 


Or speak in softened tone, 


To-morrow's sun shall fling 


So gracious in her daily walk 


O'er Cintra's hazel-shaded brow 


The angel light has shown. 


The flush of April's wing. 


No want that kindness may relieve 


The streets are loud with noisy mirth, 


Assails her heart in vain, 


They dance on every green; 


The lifting of a ragged sleeve 


The morning's dial marks the birth 


Will check her palfrey's rein. 


Of proud Braganza's queen. 



AGNES 



77 



At eve beneath their pictured dome 


And all is over. Street and square 


The gilded courtiers throng; 


In ruined heaps are piled; 


The bioad uioidores have cheated Rome 


Ah ! where is she, so frail, so fair, 


Of all her lords of song. 


Amid the tumult wild ? 


Ah ! Lisbon dreams not of the day — 


Unscathed, she treads the wreck - piled 


Pleased with her painted scenes — 


street, 


When all her towers shall slide away 


Whose narrow gaps afford 


As now these canvas screens ! 


A pathway for her bleeding feet, 




To seek her absent lord. 


The spring has passed, the summer fled, 




And yet they linger still, 


A temple's broken walls arrest 


Though autumn's rustling leaves have 


Her wild and wandering eyes; 


spread 


Beneath its shattered portal pressed, 


The flank of Cintra's hill. 


Her lord unconscious lies. 


The town has learned their Saxon name, 


The power that living hearts obey 


And touched their English gold, 


Shall lifeless blocks withstand ? 


Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame 


Love led her footsteps where he lay, — 


From over sea is told. 


Love nerves her woman's hand: 


Three hours the first November dawn 


One cry, — the marble shaft she grasps, — 


Has climbed with feeble ray 


Up heaves the ponderous stone : — 


Through mists like heavy curtains drawn 


He breathes, — her fainting form he 


Before the darkened day. 


clasps, — : 




Her life has bought his own ! 


How still the muffled echoes sleep ! 




Hark ! hark ! a hollow sound, — 




A noise like chariots rumbling deep 


PART V. THE REWARD 


Beneath the solid ground. 






How like the starless night of death 


The channel lifts, the water slides 


Our being's brief eclipse, 


And bares its bar of sand, 


When faltering heart and failing breath 


Anon a mountain billow strides 


Have bleached the fading lips ! 


And crashes o'er the land. 






She lives ! What guerdon shall repay 


The turrets lean, the steeples reel 


His debt of ransomed life ? 


Like masts on ocean's swell, 


One word can charm all wrongs away, — 


And clash a long discordant peal, 


The sacred name of Wife ! 


The death-doomed city's knell. 






The love that won her girlish charms 


The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves 


Must shield her matron fame, 


Beneath the staggering town ! 


And write beneath the Frankland arms 


The turrets crack — the castle cleaves — 


The village beauty's name. 


The spires come rushing down. 






Go, call the priest ! no vain delay 


Around, the lurid mountains glow 


Shall dim the sacred ring ! 


With strange unearthly gleams; 


Who knows what change the passing 


While black abysses gape below, 


day, 


Then close in jagged seams. 


The fleeting hour, may bring ? 


The earth has folded like a wave, 


Before the holy altar bent, 


And thrice a thousand score, 


There kneels a goodly pair; 


Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave, 


A stately man, of high descent, 


The sun shall see no more ! 


A woman, passing fair. 



78 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



No jewels lend the blinding sheen 

That meaner beauty needs, 
But on her bosom heaves unseen 

A string of golden beads. 

The vow is spoke, — the prayer is said, — 

And with a gentle pride 
The Lady Agnes lifts her head, 

Sir Harry Frankland's bride. 

No more her faithful heart shall bear 
Those griefs so meekly borne, — 

The passing sneer, the freezing stare, 
The icy look of scorn ; 

No more the blue-eyed English dames 

Their haughty lips shall curl, 
Whene'er a hissing whisper names 

The poor New England girl. 

But stay ! — his mother's haughty brow, — 

The pride of ancient race, — 
Will plighted faith, and holy vow, 

Win back her fond embrace ? 

Too well she knew the saddening tale 

Of love no vow had blest, 
That turned his blushing honors pale 

And stained his knightly crest. 

They seek his Northern home, — alas : 

He goes alone before ; — 
His own dear Agnes may not pass 

The proud, ancestral door. 

He stood before the stately dame ; 

He spoke ; she calmly heard, 
But not to pity, nor to blame; 

She breathed no single word. 

He told his love, — her faith betrayed ; 

She heard with tearless eyes; 
Could she forgive the erring maid ? 

She stared in cold surprise. 



How fond her heart, he told, 
true; 

The haughty eyelids fell ; — 
The kindly deeds she loved to do; 

She murmured, " It is well." 

But when he told that fearful day, 
And how her feet were led 

To where entombed in life he lay, 
The breathing with the dead, 



— how 



And how she bruised her tender breasts 

Against the crushing stone, 
That still the strong-armed clown protests 

No man can lift alone, — 

Oh ! then the frozen spring was broke; 

By turns she wept and smiled ; — 
" Sweet Agnes ! " so the mother spoke, 

" God bless my angel child ! 

" She saved thee from the jaws of death, — 
'T is thine to right her wrongs ; 

I tell thee, — I, who gave thee breath, — 
To her thy life belongs ! " 

Thus Agnes won her noble name, 

Her lawless lover's hand; 
The lowly maiden so became 

A lady in the land ! 

PART VI. CONCLUSION 

The tale is done ; it little needs 

To track their after ways, 
And string again the golden beads 

Of love's uncounted days. 

They leave the fair ancestral isle 
For bleak New England's shore; 

How gracious is the courtly smile 
Of all who frowned before ! 

Again through Lisbon's orange bowers 

They watch the river's gleam, 
And shudder as her shadowy towers 

Shake in the trembling stream. 

Fate parts at length the fondest pair; 

His cheek, alas ! grows pale; 
The breast that trampling death could 
spare 

His noiseless shafts assail. 

He longs to change the heaven of blue 

For England's clouded sky, — 
To breathe the air his boyhood knew; 

He seeks them but to die. 

Hard by the terraced hillside town, 
Where healing streamlets run, 

Still sparkling with their old renown, — 
The " Waters of the Sun," — 

The Lady Agnes raised the stone 
That marks his honored grave, 



THE PLOUGHMAN 



79 



And there Sir Harry sleeps alone 


Where, on the far horizon's line, 


By Wiltshire Avon's wave. 


He cut his vista through. 


The home of early love was dear; 


If further story you shall crave, 


She sought its peaceful shade, 


Or ask for living proof, 


And kept her state for many a year, 


Go see old Julia, born a slave 


With none to make afraid. 


Beneath Sir Harry's roof. 


At last the evil days were come 


She told me half that I have told, 


That saw the red cross fall; 


And she remembers well 


She hears the rebels' rattling drum, — 


The mansion as it looked of old 


Farewell to Frankland Hall ! 


Before its glories fell; — 


I tell yon, as my tale began, 


The box, when round the terraced square 


The hall is standing still; 


Its glossy wall was drawn; 


And you, kind listener, maid or man, 


The climbing vines, the snow-balls fair, 


May see it if yon will. 


The roses on the lawn. 


The box is glistening huge and green, 


And Julia says, with truthful look 


Like trees the lilacs grow, 


Stamped on her wrinkled face, 


Three elms high-arching still are seen, 


That in her own black hands she took 


And one lies stretched below. 


The coat with silver lace. 


The hangings, rough with velvet flowers, 


And you may hold the story light, 


Flap on the latticed wall; 


Or, if you like, believe ; 


And o'er the mossy ridgepole towers 


But there it was, the woman's bite, — 


The rock-hewn chimney tall. 


A mouthful from the sleeve. 


The doors on mighty hinges clash 


Now go your ways; — I need not tell\ 

The moral of my rhyme ; 
But, youths and maidens, ponder well / 


With massive bolt and bar, 


The heavy English-moulded sash 


Scarce can the night-winds jar. 


This tale of olden time ! 


Behold the chosen room he sought 




Alone, to fast and pray, 


THE PLOUGHMAN 


Each year, as chill November brought 




The dismal earthquake day. 


ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRI- 




CULTURAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER 4, 1 849 


There hnng the rapier blade he wore, 




Bent in its flattened sheath; 


[At this anniversary, Dr. Holmes not only 


The coat the shrieking; woman tore 


read the following poem, but was chairman of 


Caught in her clenching teeth; — 


the committee on the ploughing- match, and 
read the report which will be found in the notes 


The coat with tarnished silver lace 


at the end of this volume.] 


She snapped at as she slid, 


Clear the brown path, to meet his coulter's 


And down upon her death-white face 


gleam ! 


Crashed the huge coffin's lid. 


Lo ! on he comes, behind his smoking 




team, 


A graded terrace yet remains; 


With toil's bright dew-drops on his sun- 


If on its turf you stand 


burnt brow, 


And look along the wooded plains 


The lord of earth, the hero of the plough ! 


That stretch on either hand, 






First in the field before the reddening 


The broken forest walls define 


sun, 


A dim, receding view, 


Last in the shadows when the day is done, 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Line after line, along the bursting sod, 

Marks the broad acres where his feet have 
trod; 

Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods 
divide? 

The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and 
wide ; 

Matted and dense the tangled turf ' up- 
heaves, 

Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield 
cleaves ; 

Up the steep hillside, where the laboring 
train 

Slants the long track that scores the level 
plain ; 

Through the moist valley, clogged with 
oozing clay, 

The patient convoy breaks its destined way ; 

At every turn the loosening chains resound, 

The swinging ploughshare circles glisten- 
ing round, 

Till the wide field one billowy waste ap- 
pears, 

And wearied hands unbind the panting 
steers. 

These are the hands whose sturdy labor 
brings 

The peasant's food, the golden pomp of 
kings ; 

This is the page, whose letters shall be seen 

Changed by the sun to words of living 
green; 

This is the scholar, whose immortal pen 

Spells the first lesson hunger taught to 
men ; 

These are the lines which heaven-com- 
manded Toil 

Shows on his deed, — the charter of the 
soil ! 

O gracious Mother, whose benignant 

breast 
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, 
How thy sweet features, kind to every 

clime, 
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front 

of time ! 
We stain thy flowers, — they blossom o'er 

the dead; 
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread ; 
O'er the red field that trampling strife has 

torn, 
Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled 

corn ; 



Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest 

plain, 
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. 
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted 

charms 
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing 

arms, 
Let not our virtues in thy love decay, 
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength 

away. 

No ! by these hills, whose banners now dis- 
played 

In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; 

By yon twin summits, on whose splintery 
crests 

The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' 
nests ; 

By these fair plains the mountain circle 
screens, 

And feeds with streamlets from its dark 
ravines, — 

True to their home, these faithful arms 
shall toil 

To crown with peace their own untainted 
soil; 

And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, 

If her chained bandogs Faction shall un- 
bind, 

These stately forms, that bending even now 

Bowed their strong manhood to the humble 
plough, 

Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, 

The same stern iron in the same right hand, 

Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run, 

The sword has rescued what the plough- 
share won ! 



SPRING 

Winter is past ; the heart of Nature 
warms 

Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms: 

Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, 

The southern slopes are fringed with ten- 
der green; 

On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping 
eaves, 

Spring's earliest nurslings spread their 
glowing leaves, 

Bright with the hues from wider pictures 
won, 

White, azure, golden, — drift, or sky, or 
sun, — 



SPRING 



81 



The snowdrop, bearing on her patient 

breast 
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's 

crest ; 
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue 
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue; 
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through 

the mould 
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold. 
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm 

on high 
Prints her thick buds against the spotted 

sky; 
On all her boughs the stately chestnut 

cleaves 
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo 

leaves; 
The house-fly, stealing from his narrow 

grave, 
Drugged with the opiate that November 

gave, 
Beats with faint wing against the sunny 

pane, 
Or crawls, tenacious, o'er its lucid plain; 
From shaded chinks of lichen - crusted 

walls, 
Iu languid curves, the gliding serpent 

crawls ; 
The bog's green harper, thawing from his 

sleep, 
Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened 

leap; 
On floating rails that face the softening 

noons 
The still shy turtles range their dark pla- 
toons, 
Or, toiling aimless o'er the mellowing 

fields, 
Trail through the grass their tessellated 

shields. 

At last young April, ever frail and fair, 
"Wooed by her playmate with the golden 

hair, 
Chased to the margin of receding floods 
O'er the soft meadows starred with open- 
ing buds, 
In tears and blushes sighs herself away, 
And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of 
May. 

Then the proud tulip lights her beacon 
blaze, 
Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays; 



O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de- 
lis, 

Like blue-eyed Pallas, towers erect and 
free ; 

With yellower flames the lengthened sun- 
shine glows, 

And love lays bare the passion-breathing 
rose ; 

Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge 

The rival lily hastens to emerge, 

Her snowy shoulders glistening as she 
strips, 

Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. 

Then bursts the song from every leafy 

glade, 
The yielding season's bridal serenade; 
Then flash the wings returning Summer 

calls 
Through the deep arches of her forest 

halls,— 
The bluebird, breathing from his azure 

plumes 
The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle 

blooms ; 
The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping 

meekly down, 
Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; 
The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire 
Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. 
The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, 
Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; 
The crack-brained bobolink courts his 

crazy mate, 
Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight; 
Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, 
Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings. 

Why dream I here within these caging 

walls, 
Deaf to her voice, while blooming Nature 

calls ; 
Peering and gazing with insatiate looks 
Through blinding lenses, or in wearying 

books ? 
Off, gloomy spectres of the shrivelled past ! 
Fly with the leaves that fill the autumn 

blast ! 
Ye imps of Science, whose relentless chains 
Lock the warm tides within these living 

veins, 
Close your dim cavern, while its captive 

strays 
Dazzled and giddy in the morning's blaze ! 



82 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



THE STUDY 

Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late, 
Whose only altar is its rusted grate, — 
Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems, 
Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent 

beams, — 
While the dim seasons dragged their 

shrouded train, 
Its paler splendors were not quite in vain. 
From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's 

glow 
Streamed through the casement o'er the 

spectral snow; 
Here, while the night-wind wreaked its 

frantic will 
On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, 
Rent the cracked topsail from its quiver- 
ing yard, 
And rived the oak a thousand storms had 

scarred, 
Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper 

shone, 
Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling 



Not all unblest the mild interior scene 
When the red curtain spread its falling 

screen; 
O'er some light task the lonely hours were 

past, 
And the long evening only flew too fast; 
Or the wide chair its leathern arms would 

lend 
In genial welcome to some easy friend, 
Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, 
Slow moulding, plastic, to its hollow curves ; 
Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, 
In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling 

weed. 
Or, happier still, the evening hour would 

bring 
To the round table its expected ring, 
And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths 

were stirred, — 
Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard, — 
Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour 
The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden 

flower. 

Such the warm life this dim retreat has 
known, 
Not quite deserted when its guests were 
flown; 



Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, 
Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, 
Ready to answer, never known to ask, 
Claiming no service, prompt for every task. 

On those dark shelves no housewife hand 

profanes, 
O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns; 
A mingled race, the wreck of chance and 

time, 
That talk all tongues and breathe of every 

clime, 
Each knows his place, and each may claim 

his part 
In some quaint corner of his master's 

heart. 
This old Decretal, won from Kloss's hoards, 
Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with 

oaken boards, 
Stands the gray patriarch of the graver 

rows, 
Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its 

close ; 
Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, 
With glistening letters wrought in red and 

blue. 
There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, 
The Aldine anchor on his opening page ; 
There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly 

mind, 
In yon dark tomb by jealous clasps con- 
fined, 
" Oliin e libris " (dare I call it mine ?) 
Of Yale's grave Head and Killingworth's 

divine ! 
In those square sheets the songs of Maro 

fill 
The silvery types of smooth-leaved Basker- 

ville ; 
High over all, in close, compact array, 
Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. 
In lower regions of the sacred space 
Range the dense volumes of a humbler 

race ; 
There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries 

teach, 
In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech ; 
Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's 

page, 
Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, 
Lully and Geber, and the learned crew 
That loved to talk of all they could not do. 
Why count the rest, — those names of later 

days 
That many love, and all agree to praise, — 



NON-RESISTANCE 



83 



Or point the titles, where a glance may 

read 
The dangerous lines of party or of creed ? 
Too well, perchance, the chosen list would 

show 
"What few may care and none can claim to 

know. 
Each has his features, whose exterior seal 
A brush may copy, or a sunbeam steal ; 
Go to his study, — on the nearest shelf 
Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. 

What though for months the tranquil 

dust descends, 
Whitening the heads of these mine ancient 

friends, 
While the damp offspring of the modern 

press 
Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; 
Not less I love each dull familiar face, 
Nor less should miss it from the appointed 

place; 
I snatch the book, along whose burning 

leaves 
His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, 
Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I 

share, 
My old Magnalia must be standing there ! 



THE BELLS 

When o'er the street the morning peal is 

flung 
From yon tall belfry with the brazen 

tongue, 
Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale, 
To each far listener tell a different tale. 
The sexton, stooping to the quivering 

floor 
Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar, 
Whirls the hot axle, counting, one by one, 
Each dull concussion, till his task is done. 
Toil's patient daughter, when the wel- 
come note 
Clangs through the silence from the 

steeple's throat, 
Streams, a white unit, to the checkered 

street, 
Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall 

meet; 
The bell, responsive to her secret flame, 
With every note repeats her lover's name. 
The lover, tenant of the neighboring 

lane, 



Sighing, and fearing lest he sigh in vain, 
Hears the stern accents, as they come and 

go, 
Their only burden one despairing No ! 
Ocean's rough child, whom many a 

shore has known 
Ere homeward breezes swept him to his 

own, 
Starts at the echo as it circles round, 
A thousand memories kindling with the 

sound ; 
The early favorite's unforgotten charms, 
Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms; 
His first farewell, the flapping canvas 

spread, 
The seaward streamers crackling overhead, 
His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to 

weep 
Her first-born's bridal with the haggard 

deep, 
While the brave father stood with tearless 

eye, 
Smiling and choking with his last good-by. 

'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle 

beats, 
With the same impulse, every nerve it 

meets, 
Yet who shall count the varied shapes that 

ride 
On the round surge of that aerial tide ! 

O child of earth ! If floating sounds like 

these 
Steal from thyself their power to wound or 

please, 
If here or there thy changing will inclines, 
As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs, 
Look at thy heart, and when its depths are 

known, 
Then try thy brother's, judging by thine own, 
But keep thy wisdom to the narrower 

range, 
While its own standards are the sport of 

change, 
Nor count us rebels when we disobey 
The passing breath that holds thy passion's 

sway. 



NON-RESISTANCE 

Perhaps too far in these considerate 
days 
Has patience carried her submissive ways; 



84 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Wisdom has taught us to be calm and 

meek, 
To take one blow, and turn the other 

cheek; 
It is not written what a man shall do 
If the rude caitiff smite the other too ! 

Land of our fathers, in thine hour of 

need 
God help thee, guarded by the passive 

creed ! 
As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and 

cowl, 
When through the forest rings the gray 

wolf's howl; 
As the deep galleon trusts her gilded 

prow 
When the black corsair slants athwart her 

bow; 
As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful 

mien, 
Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green, 
When the dark plumage with the crimson 

beak 
Has rustled shadowy from its splintered 

peak, — 
So trust thy friends, whose babbling 

tongues would charm 
The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm, 
Thy torches ready for the answering peal 
From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted 

keel! 

THE MORAL BULLY 

Yon whey-faced brother, who delights to 

wear 
A weedy flux of ill-conditioned hair, 
Seems of the sort that in a crowded place 
One elbows freely into smallest space; 
A timid creature, lax of knee and hip, 
Whom small disturbance whitens round 

the lip; 
One of those harmless spectacled machines, 
The Holy- Week of Protestants convenes; 
Whom school-boys question if their walk 

transcends 
The last advices of maternal friends; 
Whom John, obedient to his master's sign, 
Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine, 
While Peter, glistening with luxurious 

scorn, 
Husks his white ivories like an ear of 



Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek, 
Whose yellowish linen flowers but once a 

week, 
Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare 

suits, 
And the laced high-lows which they call 

their boots, 
Well mayst thou shun that dingy front 

severe, 
But him, O stranger, him thou canst not 

fear ! 
Be slow to judge, and slower to despise, 
Man of broad shoulders and heroic size ! 
The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings, 
Drops at the fountain where the cobra 

stings. 
In that lean phantom, whose extended 

glove 
Points to the text of universal love, 
Behold the master that can tame thee 

down 
To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown ; 
His velvet throat against thy corded wrist, 
His loosened tongue against thy doubled 

fist! 

The Moral Bully, though he never 
swears, 

Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs, 

Though meekness plants his backward- 
sloping hat, 

And non-resistance ties his white cravat, 

Though his black broadcloth glories to be 
seen 

In the same plight with Shylock's gaber- 
dine, 

Hugs the same passion to his narrow 
breast 

That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's 
chest, 

Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his 
rear 

That chase from port the maddened buc- 
caneer, 

Feels the same comfort while his acrid 
words 

Turn the sweet milk of kindness into 
curds, 

Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate, 

That all we love is worthiest of our hate, 

As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's 
deck, 

When his long swivel rakes the staggering 
wreck ! 



THE OLD PLAYER 



85 



Heaven keep us all ! Is every rascal 
clown 
"Whose arm is stronger free to knock us 

down ? 
Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul 
Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on pa- 
role, 
Who, though he carries but a doubtful 

trace 
Of angel visits on his hungry face, 
From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, 
Has dogged some vices in a shabby way, 
The right to stick us with his cutthroat 

terms, 
And bait his homilies with his brother 
worms ? 



THE MIND'S DIET 

No life worth naming ever comes to 

good 
If always nourished on the selfsame food; 
The creeping mite may live so if he please, 
And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese, 
But cool Mageudie proves beyond a doubt, 
If mammals try it, that their eyes drop 

out. 

No reasoning natures find it safe to feed, 
For their sole diet, on a single creed ; 
It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their 

tongues, 
And starves the heart to feed the noisy 

lungs. 

When the first larvae on the elm are 

seen, 
The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are 

green; 
Ere chill October shakes the latest clown, 
They, like the foliage, change their tint to 

brown; 
On the blue flower a bluer flower you 

S P7> 
You stretch to pluck it — 't is a butterfly ; 
The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, 
They 're hard to find as Ethiops in the 

dark ; 
The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, 
Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for 

his blood ; 
So by long living on a single lie, 
Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its 

dye ; 



Red, yellow, green, they take their sub- 
ject's hue, — 

Except when squabbling turns them black 
and blue ! 



OUR LIMITATIONS 

We trust and fear, we question and 

believe, 
From life's dark threads a trembling faith 

to weave, 
Frail as the web that misty night has spun, 
Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the 

sun. 
While the calm centuries spell their lessons 

out, 
Each truth we conquer spreads the realm 

of doubt; 
When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's 

throne, 
The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone; 
When Pilate's hall that awful question 

heard, 
The Heavenly Captive answered not a 

word. 

Eternal Truth ! beyond our hopes and 

fears 
Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad 

spheres ! 
From age to age, while History carves 

sublime 
On her waste rock the flaming curves of 

time, 
How the wild swayings of our planet show 
That worlds unseen surround the world we 

know. 



THE OLD PLAYER 

The curtain rose ; in thunders long and 

loud 
The galleries rung; the veteran actor 

bowed. 
In flaming line the telltales of the stage 
Showed on his brow the autograph of age; 
Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair, 
And umbered shadows, prints of toil and 

care ; 
Round the wide circle glanced his vacant 

eye, — 
He strove to speak, — his voice was but a 

sigh. 



86 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Year after year had seen its short-lived 

race 
Flit past the scenes and others take their 

place; 
Yet the old prompter watched his accents 

still, 
His name still flaunted on the evening's 

bill. 
Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, 
Had died in earnest and were heard no 

more ; 
Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom 

o'erspread 
They faced the footlights in unborrowed 

red, 
Had faded slowly through successive 

shades 
To gray duennas, foils of younger maids; 
Sweet voices lost the melting tones that 

start 
With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon 

heart, 
While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky 
With their long, breathless, quivering 

locust-cry. 
Yet there he stood, — the man of other 

days, 
In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze, 
As on the oak a faded leaf that clings 
While a new April spreads its burnished 

wings. 

How bright yon rows that soared in 

triple tier, 
Their central sun the flashing chandelier ! 
How dim the eye that sought with doubtful 

aim 
Some friendly smile it still might dare to 

claim ! 
How fresh these hearts ! his own how worn 

and cold ! 
Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn 

sigh had told. 
No word yet faltered on his trembling 

tongue ; 
Again, again, the crashing galleries rung. 
As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast 
Hears in its strain the echoes of the past, 
So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered 

round, 
A life of memories startled at the sound. 
He lived again, — the page of earliest 

days, — 
Days of small fee and parsimonious 

praise ; 



Then lithe young Romeo — hark that sil- 
vered tone, 
From those smooth lips — alas ! they were 

his own. 
Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love 

and woe, 
Told his strange tale of midnight melting 

snow ; 
And dark-plumed Hamlet, with his cloak 

and blade. 
Looked on the royal ghost, himself a 

shade. 
All in one flash, his youthful memories 

came, 
Traced in bright hues of evanescent flame, 
As the spent swimmer's in the lifelong 

dream, 
While the last bubble rises through the 

stream. 

Call him not old, whose visionary brain 
Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. 
For him in vain the envious seasons roll 
Who bears eternal summer in his soul. 
If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, 
Spring with her. birds, or children at their 

play, 
Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of 

art, 
Stir the few life-drops creeping round his 

heart, 
Turn to the record where his years are 

told, — 
Count his gray hairs, — they cannot make 
him old ! 
What magic power has changed the 
faded mime ? 
One breath of memory on the dust of time. 
As the last window in the buttressed wall 
Of some gray minster tottering to its fall, 
Though to the passing crowd its hues are 

spread, 
A dull mosaic, yellow, green, and red, 
Viewed from within, a radiant glory shows 
When through its pictured screen the sun- 
light flows, 
And kneeling pilgrims on its storied pane 
See angels glow in every shapeless stain; 
So streamed the vision through his sunken 

eye, 
Clad in the splendors of his morning sky. 
All the wild hopes his eager boyhood 
knew, 
All the young fancies riper years proved 
true, 



DEDICATION OF THE PITTSFIELD CEMETERY 



87 



The sweet, low- whispered words, the win- 
ning glance 

From queens of song, from Hoiiris of the 
dance, 

Wealth's lavish gift, and Flattery's soothing 
phrase, 

And Beauty's silence when her blush was 
praise, 

And melting Pride, her lashes wet with 
tears, 

Triumphs and banquets, wreaths and crowns 
and cheers, 

Pangs of wild joy that perish on the 
tongue, 

And all that poets dream, but leave un- 
sung ! 

In every heart some viewless founts are 

fed 
From far-off hillsides where the dews were 

shed : 
On the worn features of the weariest face 
Some youthful memory leaves its hidden 

trace, 
As in old gardens left by exiled kings 
The marble basins tell of hidden springs, 
But, gray with dust, and overgrown with 

weeds. 
Their choking jets the passer little heeds, 
Till time's revenges break their seals away, 
And, clad in rainbow light, the waters 

play. 

Good night, fond dreamer ! let the cur- 
tain fall: 
The world 's a stage, and we are players all. 
A strange rehearsal ! Kings without their 

crowns, 
And threadbare lords, and jewel-wearing 

clowns, 
Speak the vain words that mock their 

throbbing hearts, 
As Want, stern prompter ! spells them out 

their parts. 
The tinselled hero whom we praise and pay 
Is twice an actor in a twofold play. 
We smile at children when a painted screen 
Seems to their simple eyes a real scene; 
Ask the poor hireling, who has left his 

throne 
To seek the cheerless home he calls his own, 
Which of his double lives most real seems, 
The world of solid fact or scenic dreams ? 
Canvas, or clouds, — the footlights, or the 

spheres, — 



The play of two short hours, or seventy 

years ? 
Dream on ! Though Heaven may woo 

our open eyes, 
Through their closed lids we look on fairer 

skies; 
Truth is for other worlds, and hope for this; 
The cheating future lends the present's 

bliss; 
Life is a running shade, with fettered 

hands, 
That chases phantoms over shifting sands, 
Death a still spectre on a marble seat, 
With ever clutching palms and shackled 

feet; 
The airy shapes that mock life's slender 

chain, 
The flying joys he strives to clasp in vain, 
Death only grasps; to live is to pursue, — 
Dream on ! there 's nothing but illusion 

true ! 



A POEM 

DEDICATIOX OF THE PITTSFIELD CEME- 
TERY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1850 

Angel of Death ! extend thy silent 
reign ! 
Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new do- 
main ! 
No sable car along the winding road 
Has borne to earth its unresisting load; 
No sudden mound has risen yet to show 
Where the pale slumberer folds his arms 

below; 
No marble gleams to bid his memory live 
In the brief lines that hurrying Time can 

give; 
Yet, O Destroyer ! from thy shrouded 

throne 
Look on our gift ; this realm is all thine 
own ! 

Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft be- 
guiled 

From their dim paths the children of the 
wild ; 

The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy 
dells, 

The feathered warrior claimed its wooded 
swells, 

Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges 
show 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



The pointed flints that left his fatal bow, 
Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian 

toil, — 
Last of his wrecks that strews the alien 

soil ! 
Here spread the fields that heaped their 

ripened store 
Till the brown arms of Labor held no more; 
The scythe's broad meadow with its dusky 

blush ; 
The sickle's harvest with its velvet flush; 
The green-haired maize, her silken tresses 

laid, 
In soft luxuriance, on her harsh brocade ; 
The gourd that swells beneath her tossing 

plume; 
The coarser wheat that rolls in lakes of 

bloom, — 
Its coral stems and milk-white flowers alive 
With the wide murmurs of the scattered 

hive; 
Here glowed the apple with the pencilled 

streak 
Of morning painted on its southern cheek; 
The pear's long necklace strung with golden 

drops, 
Arched, like the banian, o'er its pillared 

props ; 
Here crept the growths that paid the la- 
borer's care 
With the cheap luxuries wealth consents to 

spare ; 
Here sprang the healing herbs which could 

not save 
The hand that reared them from the neigh- 
boring grave. 

Yet all its varied charms, forever free 
From task and tribute, Labor yields to thee : 
No more, when April sheds her fitful rain, 
The sower's hand shall cast its flying grain ; 
No more, when Autumn strews the flaming 

leaves, 
The reaper's band shall gird its yellow 

sheaves ; 
For thee alike the circling seasons flow 
Till the first blossoms heave the latest 

snow. 
In the stiff clod below the whirling drifts, 
In the loose soil the springing herbage lifts, 
In the hot dust beneath the parching weeds, 
Life's withering flower shall drop its 

shrivelled seeds; 
Its germ entranced in thy unbreathing sleep 
Till what thou sowest mightier angels reap ! 



Spirit of Beauty ! let thy graces blend 
With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. 
Come from the bowers where Summer's 

life-blood flows 
Through the red lips of June's half-open 

rose, 
Dressed in bright hues, the loving sun- 
shine's dower; 
For tranquil Nature owns no mourning 

flower. 
Come from the forest where the beech's 

screen 
Bars the fierce noonbeam with its flakes of 

green ; 
Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy 

plains, 
Stanch the deep wound that dries the 

maple's veins. 
Come with the stream whose silver- 
braided rills 
Fling their unclasping bracelets from the 

hills, 
Till in one gleam, beneath the forest's 

wings, 
Melts the white glitter of a hundred 

springs. 
Come from the steeps where look majes- 
tic forth 
From their twin thrones the Giants of the 

North 
On the huge shapes, that, crouching at their 

knees, 
Stretch their broad shoulders, rough with 

shaggy trees. 
Through the wide waste of ether, not in 

vain, 
Their softened gaze shall reach our distant 

plain ; 
There, while the mourner turns his aching 

eyes 
On the blue mounds that print the bluer 

skies, 
Nature shall whisper that the fading view 
Of mightiest grief may wear a heavenly 

hue. 
Cherub of Wisdom ! let thy marble page 
Leave its sad lesson, new to every age; 
Teach us to live, not grudging every breath 
To the chill winds that waft us on to death, 
But ruling calmly every pulse it warms, 
And tempering gently every word it forms. 
Seraph of Love ! in heaven's adoring zone, 
Nearest of all around the central throne, 
While with soft hands the pillowed turf we 

spread 



i 



TO GOVERNOR SVvAIN 



89 



That soon shall hold us in its dreamless bed, 
With the low whisper, — Who shall first be 

laid 
In the dark chamber's yet unbroken 

shade ? — 
Let thy sweet radiance shine rekindled 

here, 
And all we cherish grow more truly dear. 
Here in the gates of Death's o'erhanging 

vault, 
Oh, teach us kindness for our brother's 

fault: 
Lay all our wrongs beneath this peaceful 

sod, 
And lead our hearts to Mercy and its God. 

Father of all ! in Death's relentless 

claim 
We read thy mercy by its sterner name; 
In the bright flower that decks the solemn 

bier, 
We see thy glory in its narrowed sphere; 
In the deep lessons that affliction draws, 
We trace the curves of thy encircling laws ; 
In the long sigh that sets our spirits free, 
We own the love that calls us back to 

Thee ! 

Through the hushed street, along the 

silent plain, 
The spectral future leads its mourning train, 
Dark with the shadows of uncounted bands, 
Where man's white lips and woman's wring- 
ing hands 
Track the still burden, rolling slow before, 
That love and kindness can protect no 

more; 
The smiling babe that, called to mortal 

strife, 
Shuts its meek eyes and drops its little 

life; 
The drooping child who prays in vain to 

live, 
And pleads for help its parent cannot give ; 
The pride of beauty stricken in its flower; 
The strength of manhood broken in an 

hour; 
Age in its weakness, bowed by toil and 

care, 
Traced in sad lines beneath its silvered hair. 

The sun shall set, and heaven's resplen- 
dent spheres 
Gild the smooth turf unhallowed yet by 
tears, 



But ah ! how soon the evening stars will 

shed 
Their sleepless light around the slumbering 

dead ! 

Take them, O Father, in immortal trust ! 
Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, 
Till the last angel rolls the stone away, 
And a new morning brings eternal day ! 

TO GOVERNOR SWAIN 

[Mr. Robert Swain was a New Bedford mer- 
chant, who became the owner of the island of 
Naushon, where he exercised a generous hos- 
pitality, and was given the title of Governor 
in playful affection. He had a passionate love 
for every tree and stone on the island, and was 
buried in a beautiful open glade in the woods 
there. The island passed into the possession of 
Mr. John M. Forbes, who married Governor 
Swain's niece. Dr. Holmes speaks of his own 
entertainment at Naushon in the Autocrat, pp. 
39-41. This poem was written at Pittsfield in 
1851.] 

Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave 

The winds that lift the ocean wave, 

The mountain stream that loops and 

swerves 
Through my broad meadow's channelled 

curves 
Should waft me on from bound to bound 
To where the River weds the Sound, 
The Sound should give me to the Sea, 
That to the Bay, the Bay to thee. 

It may not be ; too long the track 

To follow down or struggle back. 

The sun has set on fair Naushon 

Long ere my western blaze is gone ; 

The ocean disk is rolling dark 

In shadows round your swinging bark, 

While yet the yellow sunset fills 

The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad 

hills; 
The day-star wakes your island deer 
Long ere my barnyard chanticleer; 
Your mists are soaring in the blue 
While mine are sparks of glittering dew. 

It may not be; oh, would it might, 
Could I live o'er that glowing night ! 
What golden hours would come to life, 
What goodly feats of peaceful strife, — 
Such jests, that, drained of every joke, 



9 o 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



The very bank of language broke, — 
Such deeds, that Laughter nearly died 
With stitches in his belted side; 
While Time, caught fast in pleasure's 

chain, 
His double goblet snapped in twain, 
And stood with half in either hand, — 
Both brimming full, — but not of sand ! 

It may not be ; I strive in vain 

To break my slender household chain, — 

Three pairs of little clasping hands, 

One voice, that whispers, not commands. 

Even while my spirit flies away, 

My gentle jailers murmur nay; 

All shapes of elemental wrath 

They raise along my threatened path; 

The storm grows black, the waters rise, 

The mountains mingle with the skies, 

The mad tornado scoops the ground, 

The midnight robber prowls around, — 

Thus, kissing every limb they tie, 

They draw a knot and heave a sigh, 

Till, fairly netted in the toil, 

My feet are rooted to the soil. 

Only the soaring wish is free ! — 

And that, dear Governor, flies to thee ! 



TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND 

The seed that wasteful autumn cast 
To waver on its stormy blast, 
Long o'er the wintry desert tost, 
Its living germ has never lost. 
Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, 
It feels the kindling ray of spring, 
And, starting from its dream of death, 
Pours on the air its perfumed breath. 

So, parted by the rolling flood, 

The love that springs from common blood 

Needs but a single sunlit hour 

Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; 

Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, 

From shore to shore, from zone to zone, 

Where summer's falling roses stain 

The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, 

Or where the lichen creeps below 

Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow. 

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold 
May change the fair ancestral mould, 
No winter chills, no summer drains 
The life-blood drawn from English veins, 



Still bearing whereso'er it flows 
The love that with its fountain rose, 
Unchanged by space, unwronged by time, 
From age to age, from clime to clime ! 

AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDS- 
WORTH 

[In 1853 Dr. Holmes gave a course of lec- 
tures before the Lowell Institute in Boston on 
English Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, and 
this and the following five poems were post- 
ludes to the lectures.] 

Come, spread your wings, as I spread mine, 

And leave the crowded hall 
For where the eyes of twilight shine 

O'er evening's western wall. 

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, 

Each with its leafy crown; 
Hark ! from their sides a thousand rills 

Come singing sweetly down. 

A thousand rills; they leap and shine, 
Strained through the shadowy nooks, 

Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, 
They swell a hundred brooks. 

A hundred brooks, and still they run 
With ripple, shade, and gleam, 

Till, clustering^all their braids in one, 
They flow a single stream. 

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, 

A silvery sash unwound, 
With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist 

It writhes to reach the Sound. 

This is my bark, — a pygmy's ship; 

Beneath a child it rolls; 
Fear not, — one body makes it dip, 

But not a thousand souls. 

Float we the grassy banks between; 

Without an oar we glide; 
The meadows, drest in living green, 

Unroll on either side. 

Come, take the book we love so well, 

And let us read and dream 
We see whate'er its pages tell, 

And sail an English stream. 

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, 
Still trilling as he flies; 






AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE 



9i 



The linnet sings as there he sung; 
The unseen cuckoo cries, 

And daisies strew the banks along, 

And yellow kingcups shine, 
With cowslips, and a primrose throng, 

And humble celandine. 

Ah foolish dream ! when Nature nursed 

Her daughter in the West, 
The fount was drained that opened first ; 

She bared her other breast. 

On the young planet's orient shore 

Her morning hand she tried ; 
Then turned the broad medallion o'er 

And stamped the sunset side. 

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, 

Her elm with hanging spray; 
She wears her mountain diadem 

Still in her own proud way. 

Look on the forests' ancient kings, 
The hemlock's towering pride: 

Yon trunk had thrice a huudred rings, 
And fell before it died. 

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom 

And slights our grassy plain; 
For us she wears her court costume, — 

Look on its broidered train; 

The lily with the sprinkled dots, 

Brands of the noontide beam; 
The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, 

Its double in the stream, 

As if some wounded eagle's breast, 

Slow throbbing o'er the plain, 
Had left its airy path impressed 

In drops of scarlet rain. 

And hark ! and hark ! the woodland rings: 
There thrilled the thrush's soul; 

And look ! that flash of flamy wings, — 
The fire-plumed oriole ! 

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, 
Flung from the bright, blue sky; 

Below, the robin hops, and whoops 
His piercing Indian cry. 

Beauty runs virgin in the woods 
Robed in her rustic green, 



And oft a longing thought intrudes, 
As if we might have seen 

Her every finger's every joint 
Ringed with some golden line, 

Poet whom Nature did anoint ! 
Had our wild home been thine. 

Yet think not so ; Old England's blood 

Runs warm in English veins; 
But wafted o'er the icy flood 

Its better life remains: 

Our children know each wildwood smell, 

The bayberry and the fern, 
The man who does not know them well 

Is all too old to learn. 

Be patient ! On the breathing page 

Still pants our hurried past; 
Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, — 

The poet comes the last ! 

Though still the lark-voiced matins ring 
The world has known so long; 

The wood-thrush of the West shall sing 
Earth's last sweet even-song ! 

AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE 

Shine soft, ye trembling tears of light 
That strew the mourning skies ; 

Hushed in the silent dews of night 
The harp of Erin lies. 

What though her thousand years have past 

Of poets, saints, and kings, — 
Her echoes only hear the last 

That swept those golden strings. 

Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, 
The balmiest wreaths ye wear, 

Whose breath has lent your earth-born 
flowers 
Heaven's own ambrosial air. 

Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, 

By shadowy grove and rill; 
Thy song will soothe us wdiile we own 

That his was sweeter still. 

Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him 

Who gave thee swifter wings, 
Nor let thine envious shadow dim 

The light his glory flings. 






9 2 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



If in his cheek unholy blood 
Burned for one youthful hour, 

'Twas but the flushing of the bud 
That blooms a milk-white flower. 

Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, 

Who loved thy smiles so well, 
And spread thy mantle o'er his rest 

Of rose and asphodel. 

The bark has sailed the midnight sea, 

The sea without a shore, 
That waved its parting sign to thee, — 

"A health to thee, Tom Moore ! " 

And thine long lingering on the strand, 
Its bright-hued streamers furled, 

Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, 
To seek the silent world. 

Not silent ! no, the radiant stars 

Still singing as they shine, 
Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, 

Have voices sweet as thine. 

Wake, then, in happier realms above, 

The songs of bygone years, 
Till angels learn those airs of love 

That ravished mortal ears ! 



AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS 

" Purpureos spargam flores." 

The wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave 
Is lying on thy Roman grave, 
Yet on its turf young April sets 
Her store of slender violets ; 
Though all the Gods their garlands shower, 
I too may bring one purple flower. 
Alas ! what blossom shall I bring, 
That opens in my Northern spring ? 
The garden beds have all run wild, 
So trim when I was yet a child; 
Flat plantains and unseemly stalks 
Have crept across the gravel walks; 
The vines are dead, long, long ago, 
The almond buds no longer blow. 
No more upon its mound I see 
The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; 
Where once the tulips used to show, 
In straggling tufts the pansies grow; 
The grass has quenched my white-rayed 
gem, 



The flowering " Star of Bethlehem," 
Though its long blade of glossy green 
And pallid stripe may still be seen. 
Nature, who treads her nobles down, 
And gives their birthright to the clown, 
Has sown her base-born weedy things 
Above the garden's queens and kings. 
Yet one sweet flower of ancient race 
Springs in the old familiar place. 
When snows were melting down the vale, 
And Earth unlaced her icy mail, 
And March his stormy trumpet blew, 
And tender green came peeping through, 
I loved the earliest one to seek 
That broke the soil with emerald beak, 
And watch the trembling bells so blue 
Spread on the column as it grew. 
Meek child of earth ! thou wilt not shame 
The sweet, dead poet's holy name; 
The God of music gave thee birth, 
Called from the crimson-spotted earth, 
Where, sobbing his young life away, 
His own fair Hyacinthus lay. 
The hyacinth 1113- garden gave 
Shall lie upon that Roman grave ! 



AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY 

One broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacher- 
ous bay; 
On comes the blast; too daring bark, be- 
ware ! 
The cloud has clasped her ; lo ! it melts 
away; 
The wide, waste waters, but no sail is 
there. 

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; 
Midnight: with lamps the long veranda 
burns ; 
Come, wandering sail, they watch, they 
burn for thee ! 
Suns come and go, alas ! no bark returns. 

And feet -are thronging on the pebbly 
sands, 
And torches flaring in the weedy caves, 
Where'er the waters lay with icy hands 
The shapes uplifted from their coral 
graves. 

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; 
The coarse, dark women, with their hang- 
ing locks. 






AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES 



93 



And lean, wild children gather from the 
shore 
To the black hovels bedded in the rocks. 

But Love still prayed, with agonizing- wail, 
" One, one last look, ve heaving waters, 
yield ! " 
Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, 
Raised the pale burden on his level 
shield. 

Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire ; 

His form a nobler element shall claim; 
Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, 

And Death shall crown him with a wreath 
of flame. 

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; 

Swift is the change within thy crimson 
shroud ; 
Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn ; 

All else has risen in yon silvery cloud. 

Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, 

"Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, 

Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted 
skies, 
Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art. 

Breathe for his wandering soul one passing 

si » h ' 
O happier Christian, while thine eye 

grows dim, — 

In all the mansions of the house on high, 

Say not that Mercy has not one for him ! 

AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE 
OF LECTURES 

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's 

dream, 
As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled 

stream. 
There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to 

me, — 
The vision is over, — the rivulet free ! 

We have trod from the threshold of turbu- 
lent March, 

Till the green scarf of April is hung on the 
larch, 

And down the bright hillside that welcomes 
the day, 

We hear the warm panting of beautiful 
Mav. 



We will part before Summer has opened 

her wing, 
And the bosom of June swells the bodice of 

Spring, 
While the hope of the season lies fresh in 

the bud, 
And the young life of Nature runs warm in 

our blood. 

It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, 
The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the 

ground ; 
No hand shall replace it, — it rests where 

it fell, — 
It is but one word that we all know too well. 

Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed 
in his eye, 

If you free him, stares round ere he springs 
to the sky; 

The slave whom no longer his fetters re- 
strain 

Will turn for a moment and look at his 
chain. 

Our parting is not as the friendship of 

years, 
That chokes with the blessing it speaks 

through its tears; 
We have walked in a garden, and, looking 

aroimd, 
Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles 

we found. 

But now at the gate of the garden we stand, 
And the moment has come for unclasping 

the hand; 
Will you drop it like lead, and in silence 

retreat 
Like the twenty crushed forms from an 

omnibus seat ? 

Xay ! hold it one moment, — the last we 

may share, — 
I stretch it in kindness, and not for my 

fare; 
You may pass through the doorway in rank 

or in file, 
If your ticket from Xature is stamped with 

a smile. 

For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as 

we part, 
When the light round the lips is a ray from 

the heart; 



94 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



And lest a stray tear from its fountain 

might swell, 
We will seal the bright spring with a quiet 

farewell. 



THE HUDSON 

AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY 
[Given in December, 1854.] 

'T WAS a vision of childhood that came 

with its dawn, 
Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star 

was drawn; 
The nurse told the tale when the shadows 

grew long, 
And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it 

in song. 

" There flows a fair stream by the hills of 

the West," — 
She sang to her boy as he lay on her 

breast; 
"Along its smooth margin thy fathers 

have played; 
Beside its deep waters their ashes are 

laid." 

I wandered afar from the land of my 

birth, 
I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, 
But fancy still painted that wide-flowing 

stream 
With the many-hued pencil of infancy's 

dream. 

I saw the green banks of the castle- 
crowned Rhine, 

Where the grapes drink the moonlight and 
• change it to wine; 

I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they 
glide 

Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their 
side. 

But my heart would still yearn for the 

sound of the waves 
That sing as they flow by my forefathers' 

graves ; 
If manhood yet honors my cheek with a 

tear, 
I care not who sees it, — nor blush for it 

here ! 



Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of 

the West ! 
I fling this loose blossom to float on its 

breast; 
Nor let the dear love of its children grow 

cold, 
Till the channel is dry where its waters 

have rolled ! 

THE NEW EDEN 

MEETING OF THE BERKSHIRE HORTICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETY, AT STOCKBRIDGE, 
SEPTEMBER l6, 1 854 

[Mr. J. E. A. Smith, in his The Poet among 
the Hills, says that the theme of this poem was 
suggested by the severe drought in Berkshire 
County in the summer of 1854, and that after 
delivering the poem Dr. Holmes acceded to the 
request of a local editor who wished to print 
it, on condition that he should have as many 
proofs and make as many alterations as he 
chose, and in the end a hundred copies of the 
poem printed by itself. He had sixteen proofs 
and doubled the length of the poem ; besides 
giving it a more serious tone.] 

Scarce could the parting ocean close, 
Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving 
bow, 
When o'er the rugged desert rose 

The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's 
plough. 

Then sprang from many a rock-strewn 
field 

The rippling grass, the nodding grain, 
Such growths as English meadows yield 

To scanty sun and frequent rain. 

But when the fiery days were done, 
And Autumn brought his purple haze, 

Then, kindling in the slanted sun, 

The hillsides gleamed with golden 
maize. 

The food was scant, the fruits were few: 
A red-streak glistening here and there ; 

Perchance in statelier precincts grew 
Some stern old Puritanic pear. 

Austere in taste, and tough at core, 

Its unrelenting bulk was shed, 
To ripen in the Pilgrim's store 

When all the summer sweets were fled. 



THE NEW EDEN 



95 



Such was his lot, to front the storm 
With iron heart and marble brow, 

Nor ripen till his earthly form 

Was cast from life's autumnal bough. 

But ever on the bleakest rock 

We bid the brightest beacon glow, 

And still upon the thorniest stock 
The sweetest roses love to blow. 

So on our rude and wintry soil 
We feed the kindling flame of art, 

And steal the tropic's blushing spoil 
To bloom on Nature's ice-clad heart. 

See how the softening Mother's breast 
Warms to her children's patient wiles, — 

Her lips by loving Labor pressed 

Break in a thousand dimpling smiles, 

From when the flushing bud of June 
Dawns with its first auroral hue, 

Till shines the rounded harvest-moon, 
And velvet dahlias drink the dew. 

Nor these the only gifts she brings; 

Look where the laboring orchard groans, 
And yields its beryl-threaded strings 

For chestnut burs and hemlock cones. 

Dear though the shadowy maple be, 
And dearer still the whispering pine, 

Dearest yon russet-laden tree 

Browned by the heavy rubbing kine ! 

There childhood flung its rustling stone, 
There venturous boyhood learned to 
climb, — 

How well the early graft was known 
Whose fruit was ripe ere harvest-time ! 

Nor be the Fleming's pride forgot, 

With swinging drops and drooping bells, 

Freckled and splashed with streak and 
spot, 
On the warm-breasted, sloping swells; 

Nor Persia's painted garden-queen, — 
Frail Houri of the trellised wall. — 

Her deep - cleft bosom scarfed with 
green,— 
Fairest to see, and first to fall. 



When man provoked his mortal doom, 
And Eden trembled as he fell, 

When blossoms sighed their last perfume, 
And branches waved their long farewell, 

One sucker crept beneath the gate, 
One seed was wafted o'er the wall, 

One bough sustained his trembling weight ; 
These left the garden, — these were all. 

And far o'er many a distant zone 

These wrecks of Eden still are flung: 

The fruits that Paradise hath known 
Are still in earthly gardens hung. 

Yes, by our own unstoried stream 
The pink-white apple-blossoms burst 

That saw the young Euphrates gleam, — 
That Gihon's circling waters nursed. 

For us the ambrosial pear displays 
The wealth its arching branches hold, 

Bathed by a hundred summery days 
In floods of mingling fire and gold. 

And here, where beauty's cheek of flame 
With morning's earliest beam is fed, 

The sunset-painted peach may claim 
To rival its celestial red. 



What though in some unmoistened vale 
The summer leaf grow brown and sere, 

Say, shall our star of promise fail 
That circles half the rolling sphere, 

From beaches salt with bitter spray, 
O'er prairies green with softest rain, 

And ridges bright with evening's ray, 
To rocks that shade the stormless main ? 

If by our slender-threaded streams 
The blade and leaf and blossom die, 

If, drained by noontide's parching beams, 
The milky veins of Nature dry, 

See, with her swelling bosom bare, 
Yon wild-eyed Sister in the West, — 

The ring of Empire round her hair, 
The Indian's wampum on her breast ! 

We saw the August sun descend, 
Day after day, -with blood-red stain, 

And the blue mountains dimly blend 

With smoke-wreaths from the burning 
plain ; 



9 6 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings 

We sat and told the withering honrs, 

Till Heaven unsealed its hoarded springs, 
And bade them leap in flashing showers. 

Yet in our Ishmael's thirst we knew 
The mercy of the Sovereign hand 

Would pour the fountain's quickening dew 
To feed some harvest of the land. 

No flaming swords of wrath surround 
Our second Garden of the Blest; 

It spreads beyond its rocky bound, 
It climbs Nevada's glittering crest. 

God keep the tempter from its gate ! 

God shield the children, lest they fall 
From their stern fathers' free estate, — 

Till Ocean is its only wall ! 



SEMI - CENTENNIAL CELEBRA- 
TION OF THE NEW ENGLAND 
SOCIETY 

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1855 

New England, we love thee; no time can 

erase 
From the hearts of thy children the smile 

on thy face. 
'T is the mother's fond look of affection and 

pride, 
As she gives her fair son to the arms of his 

bride. 

His bride may be fresher in beauty's young 

flower; 
She may blaze in the jewels she brings with 

her dower. 
But passion must chill in Time's pitiless 

blast; 
The one that first loved us will love to the 

last. 

You have left the dear land of the lake and 
the hill, 

But its winds and its waters will talk with 
you still. 

" Forget not," they whisper, " your love is 
our debt," 

And echo breathes softly, " We never for- 
get." 



The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming 

around, 
But your hearts have flown back o'er the 

waves of the Sound; 
They have found the brown home where 

their pulses were born; 
They are throbbing their way through the 

trees and the corn. 

There are roofs you remember, — their 
glory is fled; 

There are mounds in the churchyard, — one 
sigh for the dead. 

There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scat- 
tered around; 

But Earth has no spot like that corner of 
ground. 

Come, let us be cheerful, — remember last 

night, 
How they cheered us, and — never mind — 

meant it all right; 
To-night, we harm nothing, — we love in the 

lump; 
Here 's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of 

the pump ! 

Here 's to all the good people, wherever 
they be, 

Who have grown in the shade of the liberty- 
tree; 

We all love its leaves, and its blossoms and 
fruit, 

But pray have a care of the fence round its 
root. 

We should like to talk big; it 's a kind of a 

right, 
When the tongue has got loose and the 

waistband grown tight; 
But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to 

her beau, 
On its own heap of compost no biddy should 

crow. 

Enough ! There are gentlemen waiting to 
talk, 

Whose words are to mine as the flower to 
the stalk. 

Stand by your old mother whatever be- 
fall; 

God bless all her children ! Good night to 
you all ! 



FOR THE MEETING OF THE BURNS CLUB 



97 



FAREWELL 

TO J. R. LOWELL 

[On the occasion of Lowell's going abroad 
in the spring of 1855.] 

Farewell, for the bark has her breast to 

the tide, 
And the rough arras of Ocean are stretched 

for his bride; 
The winds from the mountain stream over 

the bay; 
One clasp of the hand, then away and 

away ! 

I see the tall mast as it rocks by the 

shore ; 
The sun is declining, I see it once more; 
To-day like the blade in a thick-waving 

'field, 
To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's 

shield. 

Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous 

breath, 
"With the blue lips all round her whose 

kisses are death; 
Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her 

sail 
Has left her unaided to strive with the 

gale. 

There are hopes that play round her, like 
fires on the mast, 

That will light the dark hour till its dan- 
ger has past; 

There are prayers that will plead with the 
storm when it raves, 

And whisper " Be still ! " to the turbulent 
waves. 

Nay, think not that Friendship has called 

us in vain 
To join the fair ring ere w T e break it again; 
There is strength in its circle, — you lose 

the bright star, 
But its sisters still chain it, though shining 

afar. 

I give you one health in the juice of the 

vine, 
The blood of the vineyard shall mingle 

with mine : 



Thus, thus let us drain the last dew-drops 

of gold, 
As we empty our hearts of the blessings 

they hold. 



FOR THE MEETING OF THE 
BURNS CLUB 

1856 

The mountains glitter in the snow 

A thousand leagues asunder; 
Yet here, amid the banquet's glow, 

I hear their voice of thunder; 
Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks ; 

A flowing stream is summoned; 
Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks; 

Monadnock to Ben Lomond ! 

Though years have clipped the eagle's 
plume 
That crowned the chieftain's bonnet, 

The sun still sees the heather bloom, 
The silver mists lie on it; 

With tartan kilt and philibeg, 
What stride was ever bolder 

Than his who showed the naked leg- 
Beneath the plaided shoulder ? 

The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills, 

That heard the bugles blowing 
When down their sides the crimson rills 

With mingled blood were flowing; 
The hunts where gallant hearts were game, 

The slashing on the border, 
The raid that swooped with sword and 
flame, 

Give place to " law and order." 

Not while the rocking steeples reel 

With midnight tocsins ringing, 
Not while the crashing war-notes peal, 

God sets his poets singing; 
The bird is silent in the night, 

Or shrieks a cry of warning 
While fluttering round the beacon-light, — 

But hear him greet the morning ! 

The lark of Scotia's morning sky ! 

Whose voice may sing his praises ? 
With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, 

He walked among the daisies, 
Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong 

He soared to fields of glory; 



9 8 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



But left his laud her sweetest song 
And earth her saddest story. 

'T is not the forts the builder piles 

That chain the earth together; 
The wedded crowns, the sister isles, 

Would laugh at such a tether; 
The kindling thought, the throbbing words, 

That set the pulses beating, 
Are stronger than the myriad swords 

Of mighty armies meeting. 

Thus while within the banquet glows, 

Without, the wild winds whistle, 
We drink a triple health, — the Rose, 

The Shamrock, and the Thistle ! 
Their blended hues shall never fade 

Till War has hushed his cannon, — 
Close-twined as ocean-currents braid 

The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon ! 



ODE FOR WASHINGTON'S 
BIRTHDAY 

CELEBRATION OF THE MERCANTILE 
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, FEBRUARY 24, 
L856 

Welcome to the day returning, 

Dearer still as ages flow, 
While the torch of Faith is burning, 

Long as Freedom's altars glow ! 
See the hero whom it gave us 

Slumbering on a mother's breast; 
For the arm he stretched to save us, 

Be its morn forever blest ! 

Hear the tale of youthful glory, 

While of Britain's rescued band 
Friend and foe repeat the story, 

Spread his fame o'er sea and land, 
Where the red cross, proudly streaming, 

Flaps above the frigate's deck, 
Where the golden lilies, gleaming, 

Star the watch-towers of Quebec. 

Look ! The shadow on the dial 

Marks the hour of deadlier strife; 
Days of terror, years of trial, 

Scourge a nation into life. 
Lo, the youth, become her leader ! 

All her baffled tyrants yield ; 
Through his arm the Lord hath freed her ; 

Crown him on the tented field ! 



Vain is Empire's mad temptation ! 

Not for him an earthly crown ! 
He whose sword hath freed a nation 

Strikes the offered sceptre down. 
See the throneless Conqueror seated, 

Ruler by a people's choice; 
See the Patriot's task completed; 

Hear the Father's dying voice ! 

"By the name that you inherit, 

By the sufferings you recall, 
Cherish the fraternal spirit; 

Love your country first of all ! 
Listen not to idle questions 

If its bands may be untied; 
Doubt the patriot whose suggestions 

Strive a nation to divide ! " 

Father ! We, whose ears have tingled 

With the discord-notes of shame, — 
We, whose sires their blood have mingled 

In the battle's thunder-flame, — 
Gathering, while this holy morning 

Lights the land from sea to sea, 
Hear thy counsel, heed thy warning; 

Trust us, while we honor thee ! 



BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEB- 
STER 

JANUARY 18, 1856 

When life hath run its largest round 
Of toil and triumph, joy and woe, 

How brief a storied page is found 
To compass all its outward show ! 

The world-tried sailor tires and droops; 

His flag is rent, his keel forgot; 
His farthest voyages seem but loops 

That float from life's entangled knot. 

But when within the narrow space 

Some larger soul hath lived and wrought, 

Whose sight was open to embrace 

The boundless realms of deed and 
thought, — 

When, stricken by the freezing blast, 

A nation's living pillars fall, 
How rich the storied page, how vast, 

A word, a whisper, can recall ! 

No medal lifts its fretted face, 

Nor speaking marble cheats your eye, 



THE VOICELESS 



99 



Yet, while these pictured lines I trace, 
A living image passes by: 

A roof beneath the mountain pines; 

The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; 
The front of life's embattled lines; 

A mound beside the heaving main. 

These are the scenes: a boy appears; 

Set life's round dial in the sun, 
Count the swift arc of seventy years, 

His frame is dust; his task is done. 

Yet pause upon the noontide hour, 
Ere the declining sun has laid 

His bleaching rays on manhood's power, 
And look upon the mighty shade. 

No gloom that stately shape can hide, 
No change uncrown its brow; behold ! 

Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, 
Earth has no double from its mould ! 

Ere from the fields by valor won 
The battle-smoke had rolled away, 

And bared the blood-red setting sun, 
His eyes were opened on the day. 

His land was but a shelving strip 

Black with the strife that made it free; 

He lived to see its banners dip 
Their fringes in the Western sea. 

The boundless prairies learned his name, 
His words the mountain echoes knew, 

The Northern breezes swept his fame 
From icy lake to warm bayou. 

In toil he lived; in peace he died; 

When life's full cycle was complete, 
Put off his robes of power and pride, 

And laid them at his Master's feet. 

His rest is by the storm-swept waves 

Whom life's wild tempests roughly tried, 

Whose heart was like the streaming caves 
Of ocean, throbbing at his side. 

Death's cold white hand is like the snow 
Laid softly on the furrowed hill, 

It hides the broken seams below, 

And leaves the summit brighter still. 

In vain the envious tongue upbraids; 
His name a nation's heart shall keep 



Till morning's latest sunlight fades 
On the blue tablet of the deep ! 



THE VOICELESS 

["Read what the singing-women — one to 
ten thousand of the suffering women — tell us, 
and think of the griefs that die unspoken ! 
Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman ; 
and there are women enough lying in the next 
churchyard with very commonplace blue slate 
stones at their head and feet, for whom it was 
just as true that ' all sounds of life assumed one 
tone of love,' as for Letitia Landon, of whom 
Elizabeth Browning said it ; but she could give 
words to her grief, and they could not. — Will 
you hear a few stanzas of mine ? " The Auto- 
crat of the Breakfast Table, p. 306.] 

We count the broken lyres that rest 

Where the sweet wailing singers slum- 
ber, 
But o'er their silent sister's breast 

The wild-flowers who will stoop to num- 
ber ? 
A few can touch the magic string, 

And noisy Fame is proud to win them : — 
Alas for those that never sing, 

But die with all their music in them ! 

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone 

Whose song has told their hearts' sad 
story, — 
Weep for the voiceless, who have known 

The cross without the crown of glory ! 
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
But where the glistening night-dews weep 

On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 



, 



O hearts that break and give no sign 

Save whitening lip and fading tresses, 
Till Death pours out his longed-for wine 

Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing 
presses, — 
If singing breath or echoing chord 

To every hidden pang were given, 
What endless melodies were poured, 

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven ! 



THE TWO STREAMS 

[In his paper. My Hunt after the Captain, Dr. 
Holmes has a paragraph upon an alleged pla- 



roo 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



giarisni in this poem. It will be found in the 
Notes at the end of this volume.] 

Behold the rocky wall 
That down its sloping sides 
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as 
they fall, 
In rushing river-tides ! 

Yon stream, whose sources run 
Turned by a pebble's edge, 
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun 
Through the cleft mountain-ledge. 

The slender rill had strayed, 
But for the slanting stone, 
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid 
Of foam-flecked Oregon. 

So from the heights of Will 
Life's parting stream descends, 
And, as a moment turns its slender rill, 
Each widening torrent bends, — 

From the same cradle's side, 
From the same mother's knee, — 
One to long darkness and the frozen tide, 
One to the Peaceful Sea ! 



THE PROMISE 

Not charity we ask, 
Nor yet thy gift refuse; 
Please thy light fancy with the easy task 
Only to look and choose. 

The little-heeded toy 
That wins thy treasured gold 
May be the dearest memory, holiest joy, 
Of coming years untold. 

Heaven rains on every heart, 
But there its showers divide, 
The drops of mercy choosing, as they part, 
The dark or glowing side. 

One kindly deed may turn 
The fountain of thy soul 
To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee 
burn 
Long as its currents roll ! 

The pleasures thou hast planned, — 
Where shall their memory be 



When the white angel with the freezing 
hand 
Shall sit and watch by thee ? 

Living, thou dost not live, 
If mercy's spring run dry ; 
What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely 
give, 
Dying, thou shalt not die ! 

He promised even so ! 
To thee his lips repeat, — 
Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's 
woe 
Have washed thy Master's feet. 



AVIS 

This is a true story. Avis, Avise, or Avice 
(they pronounce it Avvis) is a real breathing 
person. Her home is not more than an hour 
and a half's space from the palaces of the great 
ladies who might like to look at her. They 
may see her and the little black girl she gave 
herself to, body and soul, when nobody else 
could bear the sight of her infirmity, — leaving 
home at noon, or even after breakfast, and 
coming back hi season to undress for the even- 
ing's party. 

I may not rightly call thy name, — 
Alas ! thy forehead never knew 

The kiss that happier children claim, 
Nor glistened with baptismal dew. 

Daughter of want and wrong and woe, 
I saw thee with thy sister-baud, 

Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing 
flow 
By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand. 

" Avis ! " — With Saxon eye and cheek, 

At once a woman and a child, 
The saint uncrowned I came to seek 

Drew near to greet us, — spoke, and 
smiled. 

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore 
All wrong to shame, all souls to win, — 

A heavenly sunbeam sent before 

Her footsteps through a world of sin. 

" And who is Avis ? " — Hear the tale 
The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell, — 

The story know r n through all the vale 
Where Avis and her sisters dwell. 



<s 



sS 



^ 



^~ THE LIVING TEMPLE/^/* 



i-oi 



With the lost children running wild, 
Strayed from the hand of human care, 

They find one little refuse child 
Left helpless in its poisoned lair. 

The primal mark is on her face, — 
The chattel-stamp, — the pariah-stain 

That follows still her hunted race, — 
The curse without the crime of Cain. 

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate 
The little suffering outcast's ail ? 

Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate 

So turned the rose-wreathed revellers 
pale. 

Ah, veil the living death from sight 
That wounds our beauty-loving eye ! 

The children turn in selfish fright, 
The white-lipped nurses hurry by. 

Take her, dread Angel ! Break in love 
This bruised reed and make it thine ! — 

No voice descended from above, 
But Avis answered, " She is mine." 

The task that dainty menials spurn 

The fair young girl has made her own; 

Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn 
The toils, the duties yet unknown. 

So Love and Death in lingering strife 
Stand face to face from day to day, 

Still battling for the spoil of Life 
While the slow seasons creep away. 

Love conquers Death; the prize is won; 

See to her joyous bosom pressed 
The dusky daughter of the sun, — 

The bronze against the marble breast ! 

Her task is done ; no voice divine 

Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame._ 

Xo eye can see the aureole shine 

That rings her brow with heavenly flame. 

Yet what has holy page more sweet, 
Or what had woman's love more fair, 

When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet 
With flowing eyes and streaming hair ? 

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, 
The Angel of that earthly throng, 

And let thine image live alone 
To hallow this unstudied sons: ! 



THE LIVING TEMPLE 

[The Professor, who is credited- with this 
verse, was supposed to call it The Anatomist's 
^Hymn.] 

'Not in the world of light alone, 
Where God has built his blazing throne, 
Nor yet alone in earth below, 
With belted seas that come and go, 
And endless isles of sunlit green, 
Is all thy Maker's glory seen: 
Look in upon thy wondrous frame , — 
Eternal wisdom still the same ! \y^ 

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves 
Flows murmuring through its hidden cases, 
Whose streams of brightening purple rush, 
Fired with a new and livelier blush, 
While all their burden of decay 
The ebbing current steals away, . *— r 

And red with Nature's flame they start -^ Lo -" 
From the warm fountains of the heart. 

No rest that throbbing slave may ask, 

Forever quivering o'er his task, •— v^^j-ZjI 

While far and wide a crimson jet 

Leaps forth to fill the woven net ^ "Vv-v-L v 

Which in unnumbered crossing tides 

The flood of burning life divides, 

Then, kindling each decaying part, - » 

Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. ° 






But warmed with that unchanging flame 
Behold the outward moving frame, 
Its living marbles jointed strong 
^With glistening band and silvery thong, 
And linked to reason's guiding reins 
By myriad rings in trembling chains, 
Each graven with the threaded zone 
Which claims it as the master's own. 

See how yon beam of seeming white 

Is braided out of seven-hued light, 

Yet in those lucid globes no ray 

By any chance shall break astray. 

Hark how the rolling surge of sound, 

Arches and spirals circling round, 

Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear 

With music it is heaven to hear. 

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds 
All thought in its mysterious folds ; 
That feels sensation's faintest thrill, 
And flashes forth the sovereign will; 
Think on the stormy world that dwells 



7 






102 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Locked in its dim and clustering cells ! 
The lightning gleams of power it sheds 
Along its hollow glassy threads ! 



r< 



O Father ! grant thy love divine 
To make these mystic temples thine ! 
When wasting age and wearying strife 
Have sapped the leaning walls of life, 
When darkness gathers over all, 
And the last tottering pillars fall, 
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, 
And mould it into heavenly forms ! , 

AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL 

TO J. R. LOWELL 
FEBRUARY 22, 1 859 

We will not speak of years to-night, — 
For what have years to bring 

But larger floods of love and light, 
And sweeter songs to sing ? 

We will not drown in wordy praise 
The kindly thoughts that rise; 

If Friendship own one tender phrase, 
He reads it in our eyes. 

We need not waste our school-boy art 
To gild this notch of Time ; — 

Forgive me if my wayward heart 
Has throbbed in artless rhyme. 

Enough for him the silent grasp 
That knits us hand in hand, 

And he the bracelet's radiant clasp 
That locks our circling band. 

Strength to his hours of manly toil ! 

Peace to his starlit dreams ! 
Who loves alike the furrowed soil, 

The music-haunted streams ! 

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright 

The sunshine on his lips, 
And faith that sees the ring of light 

Round nature's last eclipse ! 

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE 

TO J. F. CLARKE. APRIL 4, i860 

Who is the shepherd sent to lead, 

Through pastures green, the Master's 
sheep ? 



What guileless " Israelite indeed " 

The folded flock may watch and keep ? 

He who with manliest spirit joins 
The heart of gentlest human mould, 

With burning light and girded loins, 
To guide the flock, or watch the fold; 

True to all Truth the world denies, 
Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; 

Not always right in all men's eyes, 
But faithful to the light within; 

Who asks no meed of earthly fame, 
Who knows no earthly master's call, 

Who hopes for man, through guilt and 
shame, 
Still answering, " God is over all; " 

Who makes another's grief his own, 
Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; 

Where lives the saint, if such be known ? — 
Speak softly, — such an one is here ! 

O faithful shepherd ! thou hast borne 
The heat and burden of the day; 

Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams un- 
shorn, 
The sun still shows thine onward way. 

To thee our fragrant love we bring, 
In buds that April half displays, 

Sweet first-born angels of the spring, 
Caught in their opening hymn of praise. 

What though our faltering accents fail, 
Our captives know their message well, 

Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, 
And sigh more love than ours can tell. 



THE GRAY CHIEF 

FOR THE MEETING OF THE MASSACHU- 
SETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1 859 

[In honor of Dr. Jacob Bigelow.] 

'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, 
And crown with honest praise 

The gray old chief, who strikes no more 
The blow of better days. 

Before the true and trusted sage 
With willing hearts we bend, 



IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. 103 



When years have touched with hallowing age 
Our Master, Guide, and Friend. 

For all his manhood's labor past, 

For love and faith long tried, 
His age is honored to the last, 

Though strength and will have died. 

But when, untamed by toil and strife, 

Full in our front he stands, 
The torch of light, the shield of life, 

Still lifted in his hands, 

No temple, though its walls resound ~ 
With bursts of ringing cheers, 

Cau hold the honors that surround 
His manhood's twice-told years ! 



THE LAST LOOK 

W. W. SWAIN 

[Written at Naushon, September 22, 1858. 
W. W. Swain was an only son of Governor 
Swain, mentioned before, p. 89, and lies by the 
side of bis father and mother in the island 

grave.] 

Behold — not him we knew ! 
This was the prison which his soul looked 
through, 
Tender, and brave, and true. 

His voice no more is heard; 
And his dead name — that dear familiar 
word — 
Lies on our lips unstirred. 

He spake with poet's tongue ; 
Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was 
strung : 
He shall not die unsung ! 

Grief tried his love, and pain; 
And the long bondage of his martyr-chain 
Vexed his sweet soul, — in vain ! 

It felt life's surges break, 
As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake, 
Smiling while tempests wake. 

How can we sorrow more ? 
Grieve not for him whose heart had gone 
before 
To that untrodden shore ! 



Lo, through its leafy screen, 
A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green, 
Untrodden, half unseen ! 

Here let his body rest, 
Where the calm shadows that his soul 
loved best 
May slide above his breast. 

Smooth his uncurtained bed; 
And if some natural tears are softly shed, 
It is not for the dead. 

Fold the green turf aright 
For the long hours before the morning's 
light, 
And say the last Good Night ! 

And plant a clear white stone 
Close by those mounds which hold his 
loved, his own, — 
Lonely, but not alone. 

Here let him sleeping lie, 
Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in 
the sky 
And Death himself shall die ! 



IN MEMORY OF CHARLES 
WENTWORTH UPHAM, JR. 

APRIL 15, i860 

He was all sunshine; in his face 
The very soul of sweetness shone; 

Fairest and gentlest of his race ; 
None like him we can call our own. 

Something there was of one that died 
In her fresh spring-time long ago, 

Our first dear Mary, angel-eyed, 
Whose smile it was a bliss to know. 

Something of her whose love imparts 
Such radiance to her day's decline, 

We feel its twilight in our hearts 
Bright as the earliest morning-shine. 

Yet richer strains our eye could trace 
That made our plainer mould more 
fair, 

That curved the lip with happier grace, 
That waved the soft and silken hair. 



104 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Dust unto dust ! the lips are still 
That only spoke to cheer and bless; 

The folded hands lie white and chill 
Unclasped from sorrow's last caress. 

Leave him in peace ; he will not heed 
These idle tears we vainly pour, 

Give back to earth the fading weed 
Of mortal shape his spirit wore. 

" Shall I not weep my heartstrings torn, 
My flower of love that falls half blown, 

My youth uncrowned, my life forlorn, 
A thorny path to walk alone ? " 

O Mary ! one who bore thy name, 

Whose Friend and Master was divine, 

Sat waiting silent till He came, 

Bowed down in speechless grief like 
thine. 

" Where have ye laid him ? " " Come," 
they say, 

Pointing to where the loved one slept; 
Weeping, the sister led the way, — 

And, seeing Mary, " Jesus wept." 

He weeps with thee, with all that mourn, 
And He shall wipe thy streaming eyes 

Who knew all sorrows, woman-born, — 
Trust in his word ; thy dead shall rise ! 



MARTHA 

DIED JANUARY 7, 



I86l 



[Written on the death of an old family ser- 
vant.] 

Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone ; 

Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
Her weary hands their labor cease; 
Good night, poor Martha, — sleep in 



peace 



Toll the bell ! 

Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone; 

Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
For many a year has Martha said, 
"I'm old and poor, — would I 
dead ! " 

Toll the bell ! 

Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone; 
Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 



were 



She '11 bring no more, by day or night, 
Her basket full of linen white. 
Toll the bell ! 

Sexton ! Martha's dead and gone; 

_ Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
'T is fitting she should lie below 
A pure white sheet of drifted snow. 
Toll the bell ! 

Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone; 

Toll the bell ! toll the bell ! 
Sleep, Martha, sleep, to wake in light, 
Where all the robes are stainless white. 
Toll the bell ! 



MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF 
HARVARD COLLEGE 

1857 

I thank you, Mr. President, you've 

kindly broke the ice; 
Virtue should always be the first, — I 'm 

only Second Vice — 
(A vice is something with a screw that 's 

made to hold its jaw 
Till some old file has played away upon an 

ancient saw). 

Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the 
babes of days gone by, 

All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose 
milk is never dry, 

We come again, like half -grown boys, and 
gather at her beck 

About her knees, and on her lap, and cling- 
ing round her neck. 

We find her at her stately door, and in her 

ancient chair, 
Dressed in the robes of red and green she 

always loved to wear. 
Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek 

its morning flame; 
We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish 

still the same. 

We have been playing many an hour, and 

far away we 've strayed, 
Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some 

lingering in the shade; 



MEETING OF THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD COLLEGE 



I0 5 



And some have tired, and laid them down 
where darker shadows fall, — 

Dear as her loving voice may be, they can- 
not hear its call. 

"What miles we 've travelled since we shook 

the dew-drops from our shoes 
We gathered on this classic green, so famed 

for heavy dues ! 
How many boys have joined the game, how 

many slipped away, 
Since we 've been running up and down, 

and having out our play ! 

One boy at w r ork with book and brief, and 
one with gown and band, 

One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging 
in the sand, 

One flying paper kites on change, one plant- 
ing little pills, — 

The seeds of certain annual flowers well 
known as little bills. 

What maidens met us on our way, and 

clasped us hand in hand ! 
What cherubs, — not the legless kind, that 

fly, but never stand ! 
How many a youthful head we 've seen put 

on its silver crown ! 
What sudden changes back again to youth's 

empurpled brown ! 

But fairer sights have met our eyes, and 

broader lights have shone, 
Since others lit their midnight lamps where 

once we trimmed our own 
A thousand trains that flap the sky with 

flags of rushing fire, 
And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, 

Thought's million-chorded lyre. 

We 've seen the sparks of Empire fly be- 
yond the mountain bars, 

Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they 
joined the setting stars ; 

And ocean trodden into paths that tram- 
pling giants ford, 

To find the planet's vertebra? and sink its 
spinal cord. 

We 've tried reform, — and chloroform, — 
and both have turned our brain ; 

When France called up the photograph, we 
roused the foe to pain; 



Just so those earlier sages shared the chap- 
let of renown, — 

Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours 
brought their lightning down. 

We 've seen the little tricks of life, its var- 
nish and veneer, 

Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and 
disappear, 

We 've learned that oft the brownest hands 
will heap the biggest pile, 

And met with many a " perfect brick " be- 
neath a rimless " tile." 

What dreams we've had of deathless name, 

as scholars, statesmen, bards, 
While Fame, the lady with the trump, held 

up her picture cards ! 
Till, having nearly played our game, she 

gayly whispered, " Ah ! 
I said you should be something grand, — 

you '11 soon be grandpapa." 

Well, well, the old have had their day, the 

young must take their turn; 
There 's something always to forget, and 

something still to learn; 
But how to tell what 's old or young, the 

tap-root from the sprigs, 
Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce 

de Leon Twiggs ? 

The wisest was a Freshman once, just 

freed from bar and bolt, 
As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a 

colt; 
Don't be too savage with the boys, — the 

Primer does not say 
The kitten ought to go to church because 

the cat doth prey. 

The law of merit and of age is not the rule 

of three; 
Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy 

as A. B. 
When Wise the father tracked the son, 

ballooning through the skies, 
He taught a lesson to the old, — go thou 

and do like Wise ! 

Now then, old boys, and reverend youth, of 

high or low degree, 
Remember how we only get one annual out 

of three, 



io6 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



And such as dare to simmer down three 

dinners into one 
Must cut their salads mighty short, and 

pepper -well with fun. 

I've passed my zenith long ago, it's time 
for me to set; 

A dozen planets wait to shine, and I am 
lingering yet, 

As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk- 
and-watery moon 

Stains with its dim and fading ray the lus- 
trous blue of noon. 

Farewell ! yet let one echo rise to shake our 

ancient hall; 
God save the Queen, — whose throne is 

here, — the Mother of us all ! 
Till dawns the great commencement-day on 

every shore and sea, 
And " Expectantur " all mankind, to take 

their last Degree ! 

THE PARTING SONG 

FESTIVAL OF THE ALUMNI, 1 857 

The noon of summer sheds its ray 
On Harvard's holy ground ; 

The Matron calls, the sons obey, 
And gather smiling round. 

CHORUS 

Then old and young together stand, 

The sunshine and the snow, 
As heart to heart, and hand in hand, 

We sing before we go ! 

Her hundred opening doors have swung; 

Through every storied hall 
The pealing echoes loud have rung, 

"Thrice welcome one and all ! " 
Then old and young, etc. 

We floated through her peaceful bay, 

To sail life's stormy seas; 
But left our anchor where it lay 

Beneath her green old trees. 
Then old and young, etc. 

As now we lift its lengthening chain, 

That held us fast of old, 
The rusted rings grow bright again, — 

Their iron turns to gold. 

Then old and young, etc. 



Though scattered ere the setting sun, 
As leaves when wild winds blow, 

Our home is here, our hearts are one, 
Till Charles forgets to flow. 
Then old and young, etc. 



FOR THE MEETING OF THE NA- 
TIONAL SANITARY ASSOCIA- 
TION 

i860 

What makes the Healing Art divine ? 

The bitter drug we buy and sell, 
The brands that scorch, the blades that 
shine, 
The scars we leave, the " cures " we 
tell ? 

Are these thy glories, holiest Art, — 
The trophies that adorn thee best, — 

Or but thy triumph's meanest part, — 
Where mortal weakness stands con- 
fessed ? 

We take the arms that Heaven supplies 
For Life's long battle with Disease, 

Taught by our various need to prize 
Our frailest weapons, even these. 

But ah ! when Science drops her shield — 
Its peaceful shelter proved in vain — 

And bares her snow-white arm to wield 
The sad, stern ministry of pain ; 

When shuddering o'er the fount of life, 
She folds her heaven-anointed wings, 

To lift unmoved the glittering knife 
That searches all its crimson springs; 

When, faithful to her ancient lore, 
She thrusts aside her fragrant balm 

For blistering juice, or cankering ore, 
And tames them till they cure or calm; 

When in her gracious hand are seen 
The dregs and scum of earth and seas, 

Her kindness counting all things clean 
That lend the sighing sufferer ease ; 

Though on the field that Death lias won, 
She save some stragglers in retreat; — 

These single acts of mercy done 
Are but confessions of defeat. 



FOR THE 



CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



107 



What though our tempered poisons save 
Some wrecks of life from aches and ails ; 

Those grand specifics Nature gave 

Were never poised by weights or scales ! 

God leut his creatures light and air, 

And waters open to the skies; 
Man locks him in a stilling lair, 

And wonders why his brother dies ! 

In vain our pitying tears are shed, 
In vain we rear the sheltering pile 

Where Art weeds out from bed to bed 
The plagues we planted by the mile ! 

Be that the glory of the past; 

With these our sacred toils begin: 
So flies in tatters from its mast 

The yellow flag of sloth and sin, 

And lo ! the starry folds reveal 

The blazoned truth we hold so dear: 

To guard is better than to heal, — 
The shield is nobler than the spear ! 



FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL 
CELEBRATION 



JANUARY 



1859 



[In a passage at the close of Mechanism in 
Thought and Morals. Dr. Holmes applies the 
ninth, tenth and twelfth stanzas of this poem 
to Dickens.] 

His birthday. — Nay, we need not speak 
The name each heart is beating, — 

Each glistening eye and flushing cheek 
In light and flame repeating ! 

We come in one tumultuous tide, — 
One surge of wild emotion, — 

As crowding through the Frith of Clyde 
Rolls in the Western Ocean ; 

As when yon cloudless, quartered moon 

Hangs o'er each storied river, 
The swelling breasts of Ayr and Doon 

With sea-green wavelets cpiiver. 

The century shrivels like a scroll, — 
The past becomes the present, — 



And face to face, and soul to soul, 
We greet the monarch-peasant. 

While Shenstone strained in feeble flights 

With Cory don and Phillis, — 
While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's 
heights 

To snatch the Bourbon lilies, — 

Who heard the wailing infant's cry, 
The babe beneath the sheering, 

Whose song to-night in every sky 
Will shake earth's starry ceiling, — 

Whose passion-breathing voice ascends 
And floats like incense o'er us, 

Whose ringing lay of friendship blends 
With labor's anvil chorus ? 

We love him, not for sweetest song, 

Though never tone so tender; 
We love him, even in his wrong, — 

His wasteful self-surrender. 

We praise him, not for gifts divine, — 
His Muse was born of woman, — 

His manhood breathes in every line, — 
Was ever heart more human ? 

We love him. praise him, just for this : 

In every form and feature, 
Through wealth and want, through woe 
and bliss, 

He saw his fellow-creature ! 

No soul could sink beneath his love, — 

Not even angel blasted; 
No mortal power could soar above 

The pride that all outlasted ! 

Ay ! Heaven had set one living man 
Beyond the pedant's tether, — 

His virtues, frailties, He may scan, 
Who weighs them all together ! 

I fling my pebble on the cairn 
Of him, though dead, undying; 

Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn 
Beneath her daisies lying. 

The waning suns, the wasting globe, 
Shall spare the minstrel's story, — 

The centuries weave his purple robe, 
The mountain-mist of glory ! 



io8 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS 

AUGUST 29, 1859 

[The occasion was the fiftieth birthday of 
Dr. Holmes.] 

I remember — why, yes ! God bless me ! 

and was it so long ago ? 
I fear I 'm growing forgetful, as old folks 

do, you know; 
It must have been in 'forty — I would say 

'thirty-nine — 
We talked this matter over, I and a friend 

of mine. 

He said, " Well now, old fellow, I 'm 

thinking that you and I, 
If we act like other people, shall be older 

by and by ; 
What though the bright blue ocean is 

smooth as a pond can be, 
There is always a line of breakers to fringe 

the broadest sea. 

a -yy e > re taking it mighty easy, but that is 

nothing strange, 
For up to the age of thirty we spend our 

years like change; 
But creeping up towards the forties, as 

fast as the old years fill, 
And Time steps in for payment, we seem 

to change a bill." 

" I know it," I said, " old fellow ; you 

speak the solemn truth; 
A man can't live to a hundred and likewise 

keep his youth; 
But what if the ten years coming shall 

silver-streak my hair, 
You know I shall then be forty; of course 

I shall not care. 

" At forty a man grows heavy and tired of 

fun and noise; 
Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and 

love to the silly boys; 
No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of 

waists and toes, 
But high-low shoes and flannels and good 

thick worsted hose." 



But one fine August morning I found my- 
self awake : 

My birthday: — By Jove, I 'm forty ! Yes, 
forty and no mistake ! 

Why, this is the very milestone, I think I 
used to hold, 

That when a fellow had come to, a fellow 
would then be old ! 

But that is the young folks' nonsense; 

they're full of their foolish stuff; 
A man 's in his prime at forty, — I see that 

plain enough; 
At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald 

or gray; 
I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they 

say. 

At last comes another August with mist 
and rain and shine; 

Its mornings are slowly counted and creep 
to twenty-nine, 

And when on the western summits the fad- 
ing light appears, 

It touches with rosy fingers the last of my 
fifty years. 

There have been both men and women 

whose hearts were firm and bold, 
But there never was one of fifty that loved 

to say "I'm old;" 
So any elderly person that strives to shirk 

his years, 
Make him stand up at a table and try him 

by his peers. 

Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered 

round ; 
Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet 

silver-crowned, 
Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to 

hear it told; 
Guilty of fifty summers; speak ! Is the 

verdict old? 

No ! say that his hearing fails him; say 

that his sight grows dim; 
Say that he 's getting wrinkled and weak in 

back and limb, 
Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, 

to make amends, 
The youth of his fifty summers he finds in 

his twenty friends. 



THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA 



109 



BOSTON COMMON; THREE PIC- 
TURES 

FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO 
PROCURE BALL'S STATUE OF WASH- 
INGTON 

NOVEMBER 14, 1 859 

1630 

All overgrown with bush and fern, 

And straggling clumps of tangled trees, 
With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, 

Bent eastward by the mastering 
breeze, — 
With spongy bogs that drip and fill 

A yellow pond with muddy rain, 
Beneath the shaggy southern hill 

Lies wet and low the Shawmut plain. 
And hark ! the trodden branches crack; 

A crow flaps off with startled scream; 
A straying woodchuck canters back; 

A bittern rises from the stream ; 
Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; 

An otter plunges in the pool ; — 
Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, 

The parson on his brindled bull ! 

1774 
The streets are thronged with trampling 
feet, 

The northern hill is ridged with graves, 
But night and morn the drum is beat 

To frighten down the " rebel knaves." 
The stones of King Street still are red, 

And yet the bloody red-coats come: 
I hear their pacing sentry's tread, 

The click of steel, the tap of drum, 
And over all the open green, 

Where grazed of late the harmless kine, 
The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, 

The war-horse stamps, the bayonets 
shine. 
The clouds are dark with crimson rain 

Above the murderous hirelings' den, 
And soon their whistling showers shall 
stain 

The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men. 

186- 

Around the green, in morning light, 
The spired and palaced summits blaze, 

And, sunlike, from her Beacon-height 
The dome-crowned city spreads her rays ; 



They span the waves, they belt the plains, 

They skirt the roads with bands of white, 
Till with a flash of gilded panes 

Yon farthest hillside bounds the sight. 
Peace, Freedom, Wealth ! no fairer view, 

Though with the wild -bird's restless 
wings 
We sailed beneath the noontide's blue 

Or chased the moonlight's endless rings ! 
Here, fitly raised by grateful hands 

His holiest memory to recall, 
The Hero's, Patriot's image stands; 

He led our sires who won them all ! 



THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA 

A NIGHTMARE DREAM BY DAYLIGHT 

Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of 
the Sea ? 
Have you met with that dreadful old 
man ? 
If you have n't been caught, you will be, 
you will be; 
For catch you he must and he can. 

He does n't hold on by your throat, by your 
throat, 
As of old in the terrible tale; 
But he grapples you tight by the coat, by 
the coat, 
Till its buttons and button-holes fail. 

There 's the charm of a snake in his eye, in 
his eye, 
And a polypus-grip in his hands; 
You cannot go back, nor get by, nor get 

by, 

If you look at the spot where he stands. 

Oh, you 're grabbed ! See his claw on your 
sleeve, on your sleeve ! 
It is Sindbad's Old Man of the Sea ! 
You 're a Christian, no doubt you believe, 
you believe : 
You 're a martyr, whatever you be ! 

Is the breakfast-hour past ? They must 
wait, they must wait, 
While the coffee boils sullenly down, 
While the Johnny-cake burns on the grate, 
on the grate, 
And the toast is done frightfully brown. 



no 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Yes, your dinner will keep; let it cool, let 
it cool, 
And Madam may worry and fret, 
And children half-starved go to school, go 
to school; 
He can't think of sparing you yet. 

Hark ! the bell for the train ! " Come 
along ! Come along ! 
For there is n't a second to lose." 
" All aboard ! " (He holds on.) " Fsht ! 
ding-dong ! Fsht ! ding-dong ! " — 
You can follow on foot, if you choose. 

There 's a maid with a cheek like a peach, 
like a peach, 
That is waiting for you in the church; — 
But he clings to your side like a leech, like 
a leech, 
And you leave your lost bride in the 
lurch. 

There 's a babe in a fit, — hurry quick ! 
hurry quick ! 
To the doctor's as fast as you can ! 
The baby is off, while you stick, while you 
stick, 
In the grip of the dreadful Old Man ! 

I have looked on the face of the Bore, of 
the Bore ; 
The voice of the Simple I know; 
I have welcomed the Flat at my door, at 
my door ; 
I have sat by the side of the Slow; 

I have walked like a lamb by the friend, by 
the friend, 
That stuck to my skirts like a bur; 
I have borne the stale talk without end, 
without end, 
Of the sitter whom nothing could stir : 

But my hamstrings grow loose, and I shake, 
and I shake, 
At the sight of the dreadful Old Man; 
Yea, I quiver and quake, and I take, and I 
take, 
To my legs with what vigor I can ! 

Oh the dreadful Old Man of the Sea, of the 
Sea ! 
He 's come back like the Wandering 
Jew ! 



He has had his cold claw upon me, upoi. 
me, — 
And be sure that he '11 have it on you ! 



INTERNATIONAL ODE 



OUR FATHERS LAND 

This ode was sung in unison by twelve hun- 
dred children of the public schools to the air 
of " God save the Queen " at the visit of the 
Prince of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860, 

God bless our Fathers' Land ! 
Keep her in heart and hand 

One with our own ! 
From all her foes defend, 
Be her brave People's Friend, 
On all her realms descend, 

Protect her Throne ! 

Father, with loving care 

Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir, 

Guide all his ways: 
Thine arm his shelter be, 
From him by land and sea 
Bid storm and danger flee, 

Prolong his days ! 

Lord, let War's tempest cease, 
Fold the whole Earth in peace 

Under thy wings ! 
Make all thy nations one, 
All hearts beneath the sun, 
Till Thou shalt reign alone, 

Great King of kings ! 



VIVE LA FRANCE 

A SENTIMENT OFFERED AT THE DINNER 
TO H. I. H. THE PRINCE NAPOLEON, 
AT THE REVERE HOUSE, SEPTEMBER 
25, l86l 

The land of sunshine and of song ! 

Her name your hearts divine; 
To her the banquet's vows belong 

Whose breasts have poured its wine; / 
Our trusty friend, our true ally 

Through varied change and chance: ?' 
So, fill your flashing goblets high, — 

I give you, Vive la France ! 



s 







BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT 



in 



Above our hosts m triple folds 

The selfsame colors spread, 
Where Valor's faithful arm upholds 

The blue, the white, the reel; 
Alike each nation's glittering crest 

Reflects the morning's glance, — 
Twin eagles, soaring east and west: 

Once more, then, Vive la France ! 

Sister in trial ! who shall count 

Thy generous friendship's claim, 
Whose blood ran mingling in the fount 

That gave our land its name, 
Till Yorktown saw in blended line 

Our conquering arms advance, 
And victory's double garlands twine 

Our banners ? Vive la France ! 

O land of heroes ! in our need 

One gift from Heaven we crave 
To stanch these wounds that vainly bleed, - 

The wise to lead the brave ! 
Call back one Captain of thy past 

From glory's marble trance, 
Whose name shall be a bugle-blast 

To rouse us ! Vive la France ! 

Pluck Conde"s baton from the trench, 

Wake up stout Charles Martel, 
Or find some woman's hand to clench 

The sword of La Pucelle ! 
Give us one hour of old Turenne, — 

One lift of Bayard's lance, — 
Nay, call Marengo's Chief again 

To lead us ! Vive la France ! 

Ah, hush ! our welcome Guest shall hear 

But sounds of peace and joy; 
No angry echo vex thine ear, 

Fair Daughter of Savoy ! 
Once more ! the land of arms and arts, 

Of glory, grace, romance; 
Her love lies warm in all our hearts: 

God bless her ! Vive la France ! 



BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT 
FOR SISTER CAROLINE 

march 25, 1861 

She has gone, — she has left us in passion 

and pride, — 
Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our 

side ! 



She has torn her own star from our firma- 
ment's glow, 

And turned on her brother the face of a 
foe! 

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, 
We can never forget that our hearts have 

been one, — 
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's 

name, 
From the fountain of blood with the finger 

of flame ! 

You were always too ready to fire at a 

touch; 
But we said, " She is hasty, — she does not 

mean much." 
We have scowled, when you uttered some 

turbulent threat; 
But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive 

and forget ! " 

Has our love all died out ? Have its altars 

grown cold ? 
Has the curse come at last which the fathers 

foretold ? 
Then Nature must teach us the strength of 

the chain 
That her petulant children would sever in 

vain. 

They may fight till the buzzards are gorged 

with their spoil, 
Till the harvest grows black as it rots in 

the soil, 
Till the wolves and the catamounts troop 

from their caves, 
And the shark tracks the pirate, the lord of 

the waves: 

In vain is the strife ! When its fury is past, 

Their fortunes must flow in one channel at 
last, 

As the torrents that rush from the moun- 
tains of snow 

Roll mingled in peace through the valleys 
below. 

Our Union is river, lake, ocean, and sky: 
Man breaks not the medal, when God cuts 

the die ! 
Though darkened with sulphur, though 

cloven with steel, 
The blue arch will brighten, the waters will 

heal ! 



12 



SONGS IN MANY KEYS 



Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun, 


Go, then, our rash sister ! afar and aloof, 


There are battles with Fate that can never 


Run wild in the sunshine away from our 


be won ! 


roof; 


The star-flowering banner must never be 


But when your heart aches and your feet 


furled, 


have grown sore, 


For its blossoms of light are the hope of 


Remember the pathway that leads to our 


the world ! 


door ! 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 
1851-1889 



[" The class of 1S29 at Harvard College, of 
which I am a member, graduated, according to 
the triennial, fifty-nine in number. It is sixty 
years, then, since that time ; and as they were, 
on an average, about twenty years old, those 
who survive must have reached fourscore years. 
Of the fifty-nine graduates ten only are living, 
or were at the last accounts ; one in six, very 
nearly. In the first ten years after gradua- 
tion, our third decade, when we were between 
twenty and thirty years old, we lost three 
members, — about one in twenty ; between the 
ages of thirty and forty, eight died, — one in 
seven of those the decade began with ; from 



forty to fifty, only two, — or one in twenty- 
four ; from fifty to sixty, eight, — or one in 
six ; from sixty to seventy, fifteen, — or two 
out of every five ; from seventy to eighty, 
twelve, — or one in two. The greatly increased 
mortality which began with our seventh de- 
cade went on steadily increasing. At sixty we 
come ' within range of the rifle-pits,' to borrow 
an expression from my friend Weir Mitchell. ' ' 
Over The Teacups, p. 28. A list of the mem- 
bers of the class is given in the Notes at the end 
of this volume, and will serve to identify the 
initials which stand at the head of one and an- 
other poem.] 



BILL AND JOE 

Come, clear old comrade, you and I 
Will steal an hour from days gone by, 
The shining days when life was new, 
And all was bright with morning dew, 
The lusty days of long ago, 
When you were Bill and I was Joe. 

Your name may flaunt a titled- trail 
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail, 
And mine as brief appendix wear 
As Tarn O'Shanter's luckless mare; 
To-day, old friend, remember still 
That I am Joe and you are Bill. 

You 've won the great world's envied prize, 
And grand you look in people's eyes, 
With H O X. and L L. D. 
In big brave letters, fair to see, — 
Your fist, old fellow ! off they go ! — 
How are you, Bill ? How are you, Joe ? 

You 've worn the judge's ermined robe ; 
You 've taught your name to half the globe; 
You've sung mankind a deathless strain; 
You 've made the dead past live again: 
The world may call you what it will, 
But vou and I are Joe and Bill. 



The chaffing young folks stare and say 
" See those old buffers, bent and gray, — 
They talk like fellows in their teens ! 
Mad, poor old boys ! That 's what it 

means," — 
And shake their heads; they little know 
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe ! — 

How Bill forgets his hour of pride, 
While Joe sits smiling at his side; 
How Joe, in spite of time's disguise, 
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes, — 
Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill 
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill. 

Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame ? 

A fitful tongue of leaping flame; 

A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, 

That lifts a pinch of mortal dust; 

A few swift years, and who can show 

Which dust was Bill and which was Joe ? 

The w T eary idol takes his stand, 
Holds out his bruised and aching hand, 
While gaping thousands come and go, — 
How vain it seems, this empty show ! 
Till all at once his pulses thrill; — 
'T is poor old Joe's " God bless you, 
Bill ! " 



"3 



H4 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



And shall we breathe in happier spheres 
The names that pleased our mortal ears; 
In some sweet lull of harp and song 
For earth-born spirits none too long, 
Just whispering of the world below 
Where this was Bill and that was Joe ? 

No matter; while our home is here 
No sounding name is half so dear; 
When fades at length our lingering day, 
Who cares what pompous tombstones 

say? 
Read on the hearts that love us still, 
Hicjacet Joe. Hicjacet Bill. 



A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE 

1851 

The summer dawn is breaking 
On Auburn's tangled bowers, 
The golden light is waking 
On Harvard's ancient towers; 
The sun is in the sky 
That must see us do or die, 
Ere it shine on the line 
Of the Class of '29. 

At last the day is ended, 

The tutor screws no more, 
By doubt and fear attended 
Each hovers round the door, 
Till the good old Praises cries, 
While the tears stand in his eyes, 
" You have passed, and are classed 
With the Boys of '29." 

Not long are they in making 

The college halls their own, 
Instead of standing shaking, 
Too bashful to be known; 

But they kick the Seniors' shins 
Ere the second week begins, 
When they stray in the way 
Of the Boys of '29. 

If a jolly set is trolling 

The last Der Freischutz airs, 
Or a " cannon bullet " rolling 
Comes bouncing down the stairs, 
The tutors, looking out, 
Sigh, " Alas ! there is no doubt, 



? T is the noise of the Boys 
Of the Class of '29." 

Four happy years together, 

By storm and sunshine tried, 
In changing wind and weather, 
They rough it side by side, 

Till they hear their Mother cry, 
" You are fledged, and you must fly,' 
And the bell tolls the knell 
Of the days of '29. 

Since then, in peace or trouble, 
Full many a year has rolled, 
And life has counted double 
The days that then we told; 
Yet we '11 end as we 've begun, 
For though scattered, we are one, 
While each year sees us here, 
Round the board of '29. 

Though fate may throw between us 

The mountains or the sea, 
No time shall ever wean us, 
No distance set us free; 

But around the yearly board, 
When the flaming pledge is poured, 
It shall claim every name 
On the roll of '29. 

To yonder peaceful ocean 

That glows with sunset fires, 
Shall reach the warm emotion 
This welcome day inspires, 
Beyond the ridges cold 
Where a brother toils for gold, 
Till it shine through the mine 
Round the Boy of '29. 

If one whom fate has broken 
Shall lift a moistened eye, 
We '11 say, before he 's spoken — 
" Old Classmate, don't you cry ! 
Here, take the purse I hold, 
There 's a tear upon the gold — 
It was mine — it is thine — 
A'n't we Boys of '29 ? " 

As nearer still and nearer 
The fatal stars appear, 
The living shall be dearer 
With each encircling year, 
Till a few old men shall say, 
a Yfe remember 't is the day — 



THE OLD MAN DREAMS 



"5 



Let it pass with a glass 
For the Class of '29." 

As one by one is falling 

Beneath the leaves or snows, 
Each memory still recalling, 
The broken ring shall close, 
Till the nightwinds softly pass 
O'er the green and growing grass, 
Where it waves on the graves 
Of the Boys of '29 ! 



QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

1S52 

Where, oh where are the visions of morn- 
ing. 
Fresh as the dews of onr prime ? 
Gone, like tenants that quit without warn- 
ing, 
Down the back entry of time. 

Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses, 
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile ? 

Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses, 
On the old banks of the Nile. 

Where are the Marys, and Anns, and 
. . Elizas, 

Loving and lovely of yore ? 
L ok in the columns of old Advertisers, — 

Married and dead by the score. 

Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old 
fillies, 

Saturday's triumph and joy ? 
Gone, like our friend ir6das ukvs Achilles, 

Homer's ferocious old boy. 

Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion, 
Hopes like young eagles at play, 

Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion, 
How ye have faded away ! 

Yet, though the ebbing of Time's mighty 
river 
Leave our young blossoms to die, 
Let him roll smooth in his current for- 
ever, 
Till the last pebble is dry. 



AN IMPROMPTU 



NOT PREMEDITATED 



l/ 



1853 

The clock has struck noon; ere it thrice 
tell the hours 

We shall meet round the table that blushes 
with flowers, 

And I shall blush deeper with shame- 
driven blood 

That I came to the banquet and brought 
not a bud. 

Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art 
If you see through its rags the full throb 

of his heart ? 
Who asks if his comrade is battered and 

tanned 
When he feels his warm soul in the clasp 

of his hand ? 

No ! be it an epic, or be it a line, 

The Boys will all love it because it is mine ; 

I sung their last song on the morn of the 

day 
That tore from their lives the last blossom 

of May. 

It is not the sunset that glows in the wine, 
But the smile that beams over it, makes it 

divine ; 
I scatter these drops, and behold, as they 

fall, 
The day-star of memory shines through 

them all ! 

And these are the last ; they are drops that 

I stole 
From a wine-press that crushes the life 

from the soul, 
But they ran through my heart and they 

sprang to my brain 
Till our twentieth sweet summer was smil- 



ing again 



THE OLD MAN DREAMS 

1854 

Oh for one hour of youthful joy ! 
Give back my twentieth spring ! 



n6 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF 



'29 



I 'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy, 




Than reign, a gray-beard king. 


REMEMBER— FORGET 


Off with the spoils of wrinkled age ! 


1855 


Away with Learning's crown ! 




Tear out life's Wisdom-written page, 


And what shall be the song to-night, 


And dash its trophies down ! 


If song there needs must be ? 




If every year that brings us here 


One moment let my life-blood stream 


Must steal an hour from me ? 


From boyhood's fount of flame ! 


Say, shall it ring a merry peal, 


Give me one giddy, reeling dream 


Or heave a mourning sigh 


Of life all love and fame ! 


O'er shadows cast, by years long past, 




On moments flitting by ? 


My listening angel heard the prayer, 


Nay, take the first unbidden line 


And, calmly smiling, said, 


The idle hour may send, 


" If I but touch thy silvered hair 


No studied grace can mend the face 


Thy hasty wish hath sped. 


That smiles as friend on friend; 




The balsam oozes from the pine, 


" But is there nothing in thy track, 


The sweetness from the rose, 


To bid thee fondly stay, 


And so, unsought, a kindly thought 


While the swift seasons hurry back 


Finds language as it flows. 


To find the wished-for day ? " 






The years rush by in sounding flight, 


" Ah, truest soul of womankind ! 


I hear their ceaseless wings; 


Without thee what were life ? 


Their songs I hear, some far, some near, 


One bliss I cannot leave behind: 


And thus the burden rings: 


I '11 take — my — precious — wife ! " 


" The morn has fled, the noon has past, 




The sun will soon be set, 


The angel took a sapphire pen 


The twilight fade to midnight shade; 


And wrote in rainbow dew, 


Remember — and Forget ! " 


The man would be a boy again. 




And be a husband too ! 


Remember all that time has brought — 




The starry hope on high, 


" And is there nothing yet unsaid, 


The strength attained, the courage gained, 


Before the change appears ? 


The love that cannot die. 


Remember, all their gifts have fled 


Forget the bitter, brooding thought, — 


With those dissolving years." 


The word too harshly said, 




The living blame love hates to name, 


" Why, yes; " for memory would recall 


The frailties of the dead ! 


My fond paternal joys; 




" I could not bear to leave them all — 


We have been younger, so they say, 


I '11 take — my — girl — and — boys." 


But let the seasons roll, 




He cloth not lack an almanac 


The smiling angel dropped his pen, — 


Whose youth is in his soul. 


" Why, this will never do; 


The snows may clog life's iron track, 


The man would be a boy again, 


But does the axle tire, 


And be a father too ! " 


While bearing swift through bank and 
drift 




The engine's heart of fire ? 


And so I laughed, — my laughter woke 




The household with its noise, — 


I lift a goblet in my hand; 


And wrote my dream, when morning 


If good old wine it hold, 


broke, 


An ancient skin to keep it in 


To please the gray-haired boys. 


Is just the thing, we 're told. 



MARE RUBRUM 



117 



We 're grayer than the dusty flask, — 

We 're older than our wine; 
Our corks reveal the " white top " seal, 

The stamp of '29. 

Ah, Boys ! we clustered in the dawn, 

To sever in the dark; 
A merry crew, with loud halloo, 

We climbed our painted bark; 
We sailed her through the four years' 
cruise, 

We '11 sail her to the last, 
Our dear old flag, though but a rag, 

Still flying on her mast. 

So gliding on, each winter's gale 

Shall pipe us all on deck, 
Till, faint and few, the gathering crew 

Creep o'er the parting wreck, 
Her sails and streamers spread aloft 

To fortune's rain or shine, 
Till storm or sun shall all be one, 

And down o-oes Twenty-nine ! 



OUR INDIAN SUMMER 
1856 

You '11 believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleas- 
ure to rise, 

With a welcome like this in your darling 
old eyes; 

To meet the same smiles and to hear the 
same tone 

Which have greeted me oft in the years 
that have flown. 

Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the 

wall, 
My locks would turn brown at the sight of 

you all; 
If my heart were as dry as the shell on the 

sand, 
It would fill like the goblet I hold in my 

hand. 

There are noontides of autumn when sum- 
mer returns, 

Though the leaves are all garnered and 
sealed in their urns, 

And the bird on his perch, that was silent 
so long, 

Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into 
song. 



We have caged the young birds of our 
beautiful June; 

Their plumes are still bright and their 
voices in tune; 

One moment of sunshine from faces like 
these 

And they sing as they sung in the green- 
growing trees. 

The voices of morning ! how sweet is their 

thrill 
When the shadows have turned, and the 

evening grows still ! 
The text of our lives may get wiser with 

a S e '. ' 
But the print was so fair on its twentieth 



Look off from your goblet and up from 

your plate, 
Come, take the last journal, and glance at 

its date: 
Then think what we fellows should say and 

should do, 
If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2. 

Ah, no ! for the shapes that would meet 

with us here, 
From the far land of shadows, are ever too 

dear ! 
Though youth flung aroimd us its pride and 

its charms, 
We should see but the comrades we clasped 

in our arms. 

A health to our future — a sigh for our 

past, 
We love, we remember, we hope to the 
^ last; 
And for all the base lies that the almanacs 

hold, 
While we 've youth in our hearts we can 

never grow old ! 



MARE RUBRUM 



Flash out a stream of blood-red wine, 
For I would drink to other days, 

And brighter shall their memory shine, 
Seen flaming through its crimson blaze ! 

The roses die, the summers fade, 
But every ghost of boyhood's dream 



n: 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



By nature's magic power is laid 

To sleep beneath this blood-red stream ! 

It filled the purple grapes that lay, 

And drank the splendors of the sun, 
Where the long summer's cloudless day 

Is mirrored in the broad Garonne; 
It pictures still the bacchant shapes 

That saw their hoarded sunlight shed, — 
The maidens dancing on the grapes, — 

Their milk-white ankles splashed with 
red. 

Beneath these waves of crimson lie, 

In rosy fetters prisoned fast, 
Those flitting shapes that never die, — 

The swift- winged visions of the past. 
Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, 

Each shadow rends its flowery chain, 
Springs in a bubble from its brim, 

And walks the chambers of the brain. 

Poor beauty ! Time and fortune's wrong 

No shape nor feature may withstand; 
Thy wrecks are scattered all along, 

Like emptied sea-shells on the sand; 
Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, 

The dust restores each blooming girl, 
As if the sea-shells moved again 

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl. 

Here lies the home of school-boy life, 

With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, 
And, scarred by many a truant knife, 

Our old initials on the wall; 
Here rest, their keen vibrations mute, 

The shout of voices known so well, 
The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, 

The chicling of the sharp-tongued bell. 

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid 

Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed, 
And here those cherished forms have 
strayed 

We miss awhile, and call them dead. 
What wizard fills the wondrous glass ? 

What soil the enchanted clusters grew ? 
That buried passions wake and pass 

In beaded drops of fiery dew ? 

Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine, — 
Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, 
Filled from a vintage more divine, 



Calmed, but not chilled, by winter's 
snow ! 
To-night the palest wave we sip 

Rich as the priceless draught shall be 
That wet the bride of Cana's lip, — 

The wedding wine of Galilee ! 



THE BOYS 

1859 

^Has there any old fellow got mixed with 
the boys ? 

If there has, take him out, without making 
a noiseo 

Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Cata- 
logue's spite ! 

Old Time is a liar ! We 're twenty to- 
night ! -^ 

We 're twenty ! We 're twenty ! Who 

says we are more ? 
He 's tipsy, — young jackanapes ! — show 

him the door ! 
" Gray temples at twenty ? " — Yes ! white 

if we please ; 
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there 's 

nothing can freeze ! 

Was it snowing I spoke of ? Excuse the 

mistake ! 
Look close, — you will see not a sign of a 

flake ! 
We want some new garlands for those we 

have shed, — 
And these are white roses in place of the red. 

We 've a trick, we young fellows, you may 

have been told, 
Of talking (in public) as if we were old: — 
That boy we call " Doctor," and this we 

call "Judge;" 
It 's a neat little fiction, — of course it 's all 

fudge. 

That fellow 's the " Speaker," — the one on 

the right; 
" Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you 

to-night ? 
That 's our " Member of Congress," we say 

when we chaff; 
There 's the " Reverend " What 's his 

name ? — don't make me laugh. 



LINES 



119 



That boy with the grave mathematical 

look 
Made believe he had written a wonderful 

book, 
And the Royal Society thought it was 

true ! 
So they chose him right in; a good joke it 

was, too ! 

There 's a boy, we pretend, with a three- 
decker brain, 

That could harness a team with a logical 
chain ; 

When he spoke for our manhood in syl- 
labled fire, 

"We called him "The Justice," but now 
he 's " The Squire." 

And there 's a nice youngster of excellent 

pith,— 
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him 

Smith; 
But he shouted a song for the brave and 

the free, — 
Just read on his medal, "My country," 

" of thee ! " 

You hear that boy laughing ? — You think 

he 's all fun; 
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he 

has done; 
The children laugh loud as they troop to 

his call, 
And the poor man that knows him laughs 

loudest of all ! 



-A 



Yes, we 're boys, — always playing with 

tongue or with pen, — 
And I sometimes have asked, — Shall we 

ever be men ? 
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, 

and gay, 
Till the last dear companion drops smiling 

away ? 

Then here 's to our boyhood, its gold and 
its gray ! 

The stars of its winter, the dews of its 
May! 

And wheu we have done with our life-last- 
ing toys, 

Dear Father, take care of thy children, 
the Boys ! 



LINES 

i860 

I 'm ashamed, — that 's the fact, — it 's a 
pitiful case, — 

Won't any kind classmate get up in my 
place ? 

Just remember how often I 've risen be- 
fore, — 

I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor ! 

There are stories, once pleasing, too many 

times told, — 
There are beauties once charming, too 

fearfully old, — 
There are voices we 've heard till we know 

them so well, 
Though they talked for an hour they 'd 

have nothing to tell. 

Yet, Classmates ! Friends ! Brothers ! Dear 

blessed old boys ! 
Made one by a lifetime of sorrows and joys, 
What lips have such sounds as the poorest 

of these, 
Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical 

bees ? 

What voice is so sweet and what greeting 

so clear 
As the simple, warm welcome that waits 

for us here ? 
The love of our boyhood still breathes in 

its tone, 
And our hearts throb the answer, " He 's 

one of our own ! " 

Nay ! count not our numbers ; some sixty 

we know, 
But these are above, and those under the 

snow ; 
And thoughts are still mingled wherever 

we meet 
For those we remember witli those that we 

greet. 

We have rolled on life's journey, — how 

fast and how far ! 
One round of humanity's many- wheeled car, 
But up-hill and down-hill, through rattle 

and rub, 
Old, true Twenty-niners ! we 've stuck to 

our hub ! 



120 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



While a brain lives to think, or a bosom to 

feel, 
We will cling to it still like the spokes of 

a wheel ! 
And age, as it chills ns, shall fasten the 

tire 
That youth fitted round in his circle of 

fire! 



A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH 
1861 

(JANUARY THIRD) 

We sing " Our Country's " song to-night 

With saddened voice and eye; 
Her banner droops in clouded light 

Beneath the wintry sky. 
We '11 pledge her once in golden wine 

Before her stars have set: 
Though dim one reddening orb may shine, 

We have a Country yet. 

'T were vain to sigh o'er errors past, 

The fault of sires or sons; 
Our soldier heard the threatening blast, 

And spiked his useless guns; 
He saw the star-wreathed ensign fall, 

By mad invaders torn; 
But saw it from the bastioned wall 

That laughed their rage to scorn ! 

What though their angry cry is flung 

Across the howling wave, — 
They smite the air with idle tongue 

The gathering storm who brave; 
Enough of speech ! the trumpet rings; 

Be silent, patient, calm, — 
God help them if the tempest swings 

The pine against the palm ! 

Our toilsome years have made us tame; 

Our strength has slept unfelt; 
The furnace-fire is slow to flame 

That bids our ploughshares melt; 
'T is hard to lose the bread they win 

In spite of Nature's frowns, — 
To drop the iron threads we spin 

That weave our web of towns, ; 

To see the rusting turbines Stand 

Before the emptied flumes, 
To fold the arms that flood the land 

With rivers from their looms, — 



""' 



But harder still for those who learn 

The truth forgot so long; 
pheii once their slumbering passions burn, 
L The peaceful are the strong ! 

The Lord have mercy on the weak, 

And calm their frenzied ire, 
And save our brothers ere they shriek, 

" We played with Northern fire ! " 
The eagle hold his mountain height, — 

The tiger pace his den ! 
Give all their country, each his right ! 

God keep us all ! Amen ! 



J. D. R. 

1862 

The friends that are, and friends that 
were, 

What shallow waves divide ! 
I miss the form for many a year 

Still seated at my side. 

I miss him, yet I feel him still 

Amidst our faithful band, 
As if not death itself could chill 

The warmth of friendship's hand. 

His story other lips may tell, — 

For me the veil is drawn; 
I only knew he loved me well, 

He loved me — and is gone ! 



VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP 
UNION 



1862 



'Tis 



midnight: through my troubled 
dream 

Loud wails the tempest's cry; 
Before the gale, with tattered sail, 

A ship goes plunging by. 
What name ? Where bound ? — The 
rocks around 
Repeat the loud halloo. 
— The good ship Union, Southward bound : 
God help her and her crew ! 

And is the old flag flying still 

That o'er your fathers flew, 
With bands of white and rosy light, 

And field of starry blue ? 



CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE" 121 



— A3' ! look aloft ! its folds full oft 
Have braved the roaring blast, 

And still shall fly when from the sky 
This black typhoon has past ! 

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark ! 
May I thy peril share ? 

— O landsman, there are fearful seas 
The brave alone may dare ! 

— Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, 
What matters wind or wave ? 

The rocks that wreck your reeling deck 
Will leave me naught to save ! 

O landsman, art thou false or true ? 
What sign hast thou to show ? 

— The crimson stains from loyal veins 
That hold my heart-blood's flow ! 

— Enough ! what more shall honor claim ? 
I know the sacred sign; 

Above thy head our flag shall spread, 
Our ocean path be thine ! 

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape 

Lies low along her lee, 
Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes 

To lock the shore and sea. 
Xo treason here ! it cost too dear 

To win this barren realm ! 
And true and free the hands must be 

That hold the whaler's helm ! 

Still on ! Manhattan's narrowing bay 

Xo rebel cruiser scars; 
Her waters feel no pirate's keel 

That flaunts the fallen stars ! 

— But watch the light on yonder height, — 
Ay, pilot, have a care ! 

Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud 
The capes of Delaware ! 

Say, pilot, what this fort may be, 
I Whose sentinels look down 

I From moated walls that show the sea 
Their deep embrasures' frown ? 
The Rebel host claims all the coast, 

But these are friends, we know, 
Whose footprints spoil the " sacred soil," 
And this is ? — Fort Monroe ! 

The breakers roar, — how bears the 
shore ? 

— The traitorous wreckers' hands 
Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays 

Along the Hatteras sands. 



— Ha ! say not so ! I see its glow ! 

Again the shoals display 
The beacon light that shines by night, 

The Union Stars by day ! 

The good ship flies to milder skies, 

The wave more gently flows, 
The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas 

The breath of Beaufort's rose. 
What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, 

Fair-striped and many-starred, 
Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, 

The twins of Beauregard ? 

What ! heard you not Port Royal's doom ? 

How the black war-ships came 
And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom 

To redder wreaths of flame ? 
How from Rebellion's broken reed 

We saw his emblem fall, 
As soon his cursed poison- weed 

Shall drop from Sumter's wall ? 

On ! on ! Pulaski's iron hail 

Falls harmless on Tybee ! 
The good ship feels the freshening gales, 

She strikes the open sea; 
She rounds the point, she threads the keys 

That guard the Land of Flowers, 
And rides at last where firm and fast 

Her own Gibraltar towers ! 

The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, 

At anchor safe she swings, 
And loud and clear with cheer on cheer 

Her joyous welcome rings: 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! it shakes the wave, 
, It thunders on the shore, — 
'^ne flag, one land, one heart, one hand, 

One Xation, evermore ! 

V 

"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM 
YE WILL SERVE" 

1863 

Yes, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while 
you hate 

The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne- 
shaking State ! 

The night-birds dread morning, — your 
instinct is true, — 

The day-star of Freedom brings midnight 
for vou ! 



122 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



Why plead with the deaf for the cause of 
mankind ? 

The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is 
blind ! 

We ask not your reasons, — 't were wast- 
ing our time, — 

Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime ! 

We have battles to fight, we have foes to 

subdue, — 
Time waits not for us, and we wait not for 



you 



The mower mows on, though the adder 

may writhe 
And the copper-head coil round the blade 

of his scythe ! 

" No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen 

may urge, 
Of school-house and wages with slave-pen 



and 



scourge 



1 



No sides in the quarrel ! proclaim it as 

well 
To the angels that fight with the legions of 

hell ! 

They kneel in God's temple, the North and 
the South, 

With blood on each weapon and prayers in 
each mouth. 

Whose cry shall be answered ? Ye Heav- 
ens, attend 

The lords of the lash as their voices 
ascend ! 

" Lord, we are shaped in the image of 

Thee, — 
Smite down the base millions that claim to 

be free, 
And lend thy strong arm to the soft-handed 

race 
Who eat not their bread in the sweat of 

their face ! " 

So pleads the proud planter. What echoes 
are these ? 

The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the 
breeze, 

And, lost in the shriek of his victim's 
despair, 

His voice dies unheard. — Hear the Puri- 
tan's prayer ! 

" O Lord, that didst smother mankind in 
thy flood, 



The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as 

blood, 
The stars fall to earth as untimely are 

cast 
The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in 

the blast ! 

" All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is 

breath 
Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with 

Death ! 
Lord, strangle the monster that struggles 

to birth, 
Or mock us no more with thy ' Kingdom 

on Earth ' ! 

" If Amnion and Moab must reign in the 

land 
Thou gavest thine Israel, fresh from thy 

hand, 
Call Baal and Ashtaroth out of their graves 
To be the new gods for the empire of 

slaves ! " 

Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of 
men ? 

Will ye build you new shrines in the slave- 
breeder's den ? 

Or bow with the children of light, as they 
call 

On the Judge of the Earth and the Father 
of All ? 

Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time 

moves apace, — 
Each day is an age in the life of our 

race ! 
Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in 

fear 
From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle 

the sphere ! 



F. W. C. 

1864 

Fast as the rolling seasons bring 

The hour of fate to those we love, 
Each pearl that leaves the broken string | 

Is set in Friendship's crown above. 
As narrower grows the earthly chain, 

The circle widens in the sky ; 
These are our treasures that remain, 

But those are stars that beam on highi 



THE LAST CHARGE 



We miss — oh, bow we miss ! — his face, — 

With trembling accents speak bis name. 
Eartb cannot fill bis shadowed place 

From all her rolls of pride and fame. 
Our song has lost the silvery thread 

That carolled through bis jocund lips; 
Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled, 

And all our sunshine in eclipse. 

And what and whence the wondrous charm 

That kept his manhood boylike still, — 
That life's hard censors could disarm 

And lead them captive at his will ? 
His heart was shaped of rosier clay, — 

His veins were filled with ruddier fire, — 
Time could not chill him, fortune sway, 

Xor toil with all its burdens tire. 

His speech burst throbbing from its fount 

And set our colder thoughts aglow, 
As the hot leaping geysers mount 

And falling melt the Iceland snow. 
Some word, perchance, we counted rash, — 

Some phrase our calmness might disclaim, 
Yet 't was the sunset's lightning's flash, 

Xo angry bolt, but harmless flame. 

Man judges all, God knoweth each; 

We read the rule, He sees the law; 
How oft his laughing children teach 

The truths his prophets never saw ! 
O friend, whose wisdom flowered in mirth, 

Our hearts are sad, our eyes are dim; 
He gave thy smiles to brighten eartb, — 

We trust thy joyous soul to Him ! 



AL 



our weakness Heaven f or<nve ! 



We murmur, even while we trust, 
(i How long earth's breathing burdens live, 

Whose hearts, before they die, are dust ! " 
But thou ! — through grief 's untimely tears 

We ask with half-reproachful sigh — 
" Couldst thou not watch a few brief years 

Till Friendship faltered, ' Thou mavst 
die ' ? " 

Who loved our boyish years so well ? 

Who knew so well their pleasant tales, 
And all those livelier freaks could tell 

Whose oft-told story never fails ? 
In vain we turn our aching eyes, — 

In vain we stretch our eager bauds, — 
Cold in bis wintry shroud he lies 

Beneath the dreary drifting sands ! 



Ah, speak not thus ! He lies not there ! 

We see him, hear him as of old ! 
He comes ! He claims his wonted chair ; 

His beaming face we still behold ! 
His voice rings clear in all our songs, 

And loud his mirthful accents rise; 
To us our brother's life belongs, — 

Dear friends, a classmate never dies ! 



THE LAST CHARGE 
1864 

Now, men of the North ! will you join in 

the strife 
For country, for freedom, for honor, for 

life? 
The giant grows blind in his fury and 

spite, — 
One blow on his forehead will settle the 

fight ! 

Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of 

steel, 
And stun him wdth cannon-bolts, peal upon 

peal ! 
Mount, troopers, and follow your game to 

its lair, 
As the homid tracks the wolf and the 

beagle the hare ! 

Blow, trumpets, your summons, till slug- 
gards awake ! 

Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint- 
hearted shake ! 

Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the 
scroll, 

Their names may be traced on the blood- 
sprinkled roll ! 

Trust not the false herald that painted your 

shield : 
True honor to-day must be sought on the 

field ! 
Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of 

red, — 
The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed ! 

The hour is at hand, and the moment draws 

nigh; 
The dog-star of treason grows dim in the 

sJiy; 



124 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of 

the morn, 
Call back the bright hour when the Nation 

was born ! 

The rivers of peace through our valleys 

shall run, 
As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun; 
Smite, smite the proud parricide down 

from his throne, — 
His sceptre once broken, the world is our 

own ! 

OUR OLDEST FRIEND 

1865 

I give you the health of the oldest friend 
That, short of eternity, earth can lend, — 
A friend so faithful and tried and true 
That nothing can wean him from me and 
you. 

When first we screeched in the sudden 

blaze 
Of the daylight's blinding and blasting rays, 
And gulped at the gaseous, groggy air, 
This old, old friend stood waiting there. 

And when, with a kind of mortal strife, 
We had gasped and choked into breathing 

life, 
He watched by the cradle, day and night, 
And held our hands till we stood upright. 

From gristle and pulp our frames have 

grown 
To stringy muscle and solid bone ; 
While we were changing, he altered not; 
We might forget, but he never forgot. 

He came with us to the college class, — 
Little cared he for the steward's pass ! 
All the rest must pay their fee, 
But the grim old dead-head entered free. 

He stayed with us while we counted o'er 
Four times each of the seasons four; 
And with every season, from year to year, 
The dear name Classmate he made more 
dear. 

He never leaves us, — he never will, 
Till our hands are cold and our hearts are 
still: 



On birthdays, and Christmas, and New- 
Year's too, 
He always remembers both me and you. 

Every year this faithful friend 

His little present is sure to send; 

Every year, wheresoe'er we be, 

He wants a keepsake from you and me. 

How he loves us ! he pats our heads, 
And, lo ! they are gleaming with silver 

threads ; 
And he 's always begging one lock of hair, 
Till our shining crowns have nothing to 

wear. 

At length he will tell us, one by one, 
" My child, your labor on earth is done; 
And now you must journey afar to see 
My elder brother, — Eternity ! " 

And so, when long, long years have passed, 
Some dear old fellow will be the last, — 
Never a boy alive but he 
Of all our goodly company ! 

When he lies down, but not till then, 
Our kind Class-Angel will drop the pen 
That writes in the day-book kept above 
Our lifelong record of faith and love. 

So here 's a health in homely rhyme 
To our oldest classmate, Father Time ! 
May our last survivor live to be 
As bald and as wise and as tough as he ! 



SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH 



A HALF-RHYMED IMPROMPTU 



Like the tribes of Israel, 

Fed on quails and manna, 
Sherman and his glorious band 
Journeyed through the rebel land, 
Fed from Heaven's all-bounteous hand, 

Marching on Savannah ! 

As the moving pillar shone, 
Streamed the starry banner 
All day long in rosy light, 
Flaming splendor all the night, 
Till it swooped in eagle flight 
Down on doomed Savannah ! 



MY ANNUAL 



12 



Glory be to God on high ! 

Shout the loud Hosauua ! 
Treason's wilderness is past, 
Canaan's shore is won at last, 
Peal a nation's trumpet-blast. — 

Sherman 's in Savannah ! 

Soon shall Richmond's tough old hide 

Find a tough old tanner ! 
Soon from every rebel wall 
Shall the rag of treason fall, 
Till our banner flaps o'er all 

As it crowns Savannah ! 



MY ANNUAL 

1866 

How loug will this harp which you once 
loved to hear 

Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of 
a tear ? 

How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, 

While its strings were unbroken, untar- 
nished its gold ? 

Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do 

you wrong; 
The heart, the heart only, shall throb in 

my song; 
It reads the kind answer that looks from 

your eyes, — 
" We will bid our old harper play on till 

he dies." 

Though Youth, the fair angel that looked 

o'er the strings, 
Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on 

his wings, 
Though the freshness of morning has 

passed from its tone, 
It is still the old harp that was always 

your own. 

I claim not its music, — each note it affords 
I strike from your heart-striugs, that lend 

me its chords; 
I know you will listen and love to the last, 
For it trembles and thrills with the voice 

of your past. 

Ah, brothers ! dear brothers ! the harp 

that I hold 
No craftsman could string and no artisan 

mould ; 



He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned 

the lyres 
That ring with the hymns of the seraphim 

choirs. 

Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, 

Not mine the faint fragrance around it that 
clings; 

Those shapes are the phantoms of years 
that are fled, 

Those sweets breathe from roses your sum- 
mers have shed. 

Each hour of the past lends its tribute to 

this, 
Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden 

of Bliss; 
The thorn and the thistle may grow as 

they will, 
Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise 

still. 

The bird wanders careless while summer 

is green, 
The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him 

unseen; 
When Autumn's rude fingers the woods 

have undressed, 
The boughs may look bare, but they show 

him his nest. 

Too precious these moments ! the lustre 
they fling 

Is the light of our year, is the gem of its 
ring, 

So brimming with sunshine, we almost for- 
get 

The rays it has lost, and its border of jet. 

While round us the mauy-hued halo is shed, 

How dear are the living, how near are the 
dead ! 

One circle, scarce broken, these waiting be- 
low, 

Those walking the shores where the aspho- 
dels blow ! 

Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall 
divide, — 

No brother new-born finds his place at my 
side ; 

No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs in- 
fest, 

His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the 
rest. 



126 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



Some won the world's homage, their names 
we hold dear, — 

But Friendship, not Fame, is the counter- 
sign here ; 

Make room by the conqueror crowned in 
the strife 

For the comrade that limps from the battle 
of life ! 

What tongue talks of battle ? Too long 

we have heard 
In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word ; 
It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the 

wave, 
It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our 

brave. 

Peace, Peace come at last, with her garland 
of white; 

Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to- 
night; 

The blazon of Union spreads full in the 
sun ; 

We echo its words, — We are one ! We 
are one ! 



ALL HERE 
1867 

It is not what we say or sing, 

That keeps our charm so long unbroken, 
Though every lightest leaf we bring 

May touch the heart as friendship's 
token; 
Not what we sing or what we say 

Can make us dearer to each other; 
We love the singer and his lay, 

But love as well the silent brother. 

Yet bring whate'er your garden grows, 

Thrice welcome to our smiles and 
praises ; 
Thanks for the myrtle and the rose, 

Thanks for the marigolds and daisies; 
One flower erelong we all shall claim, 

Alas ! unloved of Amaryllis — 
Nature's last blossom — need I name 

The wreath of threescore's silver lilies ? 

How many, brothers, meet to-night 

Around our boyhood's covered embers ? 

Go read the treasured names aright 
The old triennial list remembers ; 



Though twenty wear the starry sign 
That tells a life has broke its tether, 

The fifty-eight of 'twenty-nine — 

God bless The Boys ! — are all together ! 

These come with joyous look and word, 

With friendly grasp and cheerful greet- 
ing,— 
Those smile unseen, and move unheard, 

The angel guests of every meeting; 
They cast no shadow in the flame 

That flushes from the gilded lustre, 
But count us — we are still the same ; 

One earthly band, one heavenly cluster ! 

Love dies not when he bows his head 

To pass beyond the narrow portals, — 
The light these glowing moments shed 
Wakes from their sleep our lost immor- 
tals; 
They come as in their joyous prime, 

Before their morning days were num- 
bered, — 
Death stays the envious hand of Time, — 
The eyes have not grown dim that slum- 
bered ! 

The paths that loving souls have trod 

Arch o'er the dust where worldlings 
grovel 
High as the zenith o'er the sod, — 

The cross above the sexton's shovel ! 
We rise beyond the realms of day; 

They seem to stoop from spheres of glory 
With us one happy hour to stray, 

While youth comes back in song and 
story. 

Ah ! ours is friendship true as steel 

That war has tried in edge and temper; 
It writes upon its sacred seal 

The priest's ubique — omnes — semper ! 
It lends the sky a fairer sun 

That cheers our lives with rays as steady 
As if our footsteps had begun 

To print the golden streets already ! 

The tangling years have clinched its knot 

Too fast for mortal strength to sunder; 
The lightning bolts of noon are shot; 

No fear of evening's idle thunder ! 
Too late ! too late ! — no graceless hand 

Shall stretch its cords in vain endeavor 
To rive the close encircling band 

That made and keeps us one forever ! 



ONCE MORE 



127 



So when upon the fated scroll 

The falling stars have all descended, 
And, hlotted from the breathing roll. 

Our little page of life is ended, 
We ask but one memorial line 

Traced on thy tablet, Gracious Mother: 
" My children. Boys of '29. 

In pace. How they loved each other ! " 



ONCE MORE 

1 868 

Will I come ? That is pleasant ! I beg to 

inquire 
If the gun that I carry has ever missed 

fire? 
And which was the muster-roll — mention 

but one — 
That missed your old comrade who carries 

the gun ? 

You see me as always, my hand on the 

lock, 
The cap on the nipple, the hammer full 

cock; 
It is rusty, some tell me ; I heed not the 

scoff; 
It is battered and bruised, but it always 

goes off S 

" Is it loaded ? " I '11 bet you ! What 

does n't it hold ? 
Rammed full to the muzzle with memories 

untold; 
Why, it scares me to fire, lest the pieces 

should fly 
Like the canuons that burst on the Fourth 

of July ! 

One charge is a remnant of College-day 

dreams 
(Its wadding is made of forensics and 

themes); 
Ah, visions of fame ! what a flash in the 

pan 
As the trigger was pulled by each clever 

young man ! 

And love ! Bless my stars, what a cart- 
ridge is there ! 

With a wadding of rose-leaves and ribbons 
and hair, — 



All crammed in one verse to go off at a 

shot ! 
" Were there ever such sweethearts ? " Of 

course there were not ! 

And next, — what a load ! it will split the 

old gun, — 
Three fingers, — four fingers, — five fingers 

of fun ! 
Come tell me, gray sages, for mischief and 

noise 
Was there ever a lot like us fellows, " The 

Boys " ? 

Bump ! bump ! down the staircase the can- 
non-ball goes, — 

Aha, old Professor ! Look out for your 
toes ! 

Don't think, my poor Tutor, to sleep in your 
bed, — 

Two " Boys " — 'twenty-nine rs — room over 
your head ! 

Remember the nights when the tar-barrel 

blazed ! 
From red "Massachusetts" the war-cry 

was raised; 
And " Hollis " and " Stoughton " reechoed 

the call; 
Till P poked his head out of Holworthy 

Hall! 

Old P , as we called him, — at fifty or 

so, — 

Not exactly a bud, but not quite in fuli 
blow; 

In ripening manhood, suppose we should 
say, 

Just nearing his prime, as we boys are to- 
day ! 

Oh say, can you look through the vista of 
age 

To the time when old Morse drove the reg- 
ular stage ? 

When Lyon told tales of the long-vanished 
years, 

And Lenox crept round with the rings in 
his ears ? 

And dost thou, my brother, remember in- 
deed 

The days of our dealings with Willard and 
Read ? 



12- 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



When " Dolly " was kicking and running 

away, 
And punch came up smoking on Fille- 

brown's tray ? 

But where are the Tutors, my brother, oh 

tell ! — 
And where the Professors, remembered so 

well? 
The sturdy old Grecians of Holworthy 

Hall, 
And Latin, and Logic, and Hebrew, and 

all? 

" They are dead, the old fellows " (we 

called them so then, 
Though we since have found out they were 

lusty young men). 
They are dead, do you tell me ? — but how 

do you know ? 
You 've filled once too often. I doubt if 

it '-s so. 

I 'm thinking. I 'm thinking. Is this 
'sixty-eight ? 

It 's not quite so clear. It admits of de- 
bate. 

I may have been dreaming. I rather in- 
cline 

To think — yes, I 'm certain — it is 'twenty- 
nine ! 

" By Zhorzhe ! " — as friend Sales is accus- 
tomed to cry, — 

You tell me they 're dead, but I know it 's 
a lie ! 

Is Jackson not President ? — What was 't 
you said ? 

It can't be; you're joking; what, — all of 
'em dead ? 

Jim, — Harry, — Fred, — Isaac, — all gone 

from our side ? 
They could n't have left us, — no, not if 

they tried. 
Look, — there 's our old Prseses, — he 

can't find his text; 
See, — P rubs his leg, as he growls out 

" The next ! " 

I told you 't was nonsense. Joe, give us a 

song ! 
Go harness up "Dolly," and fetch her 

along ! — 



Dead ! Dead ! You false graybeard, I 

swear they are not ! 
Hurrah for Old Hickory ! — Oh, I forgot ! 

Well, one we have with us (how could he 

contrive 
To deal with us youngsters and still to 

survive ?) 
Who wore for our guidance authority's 

robe, — 
No wonder he took to the study of Job ! 

And now, as my load was uncommonly 

large, 
Let me taper it off with a classical charge ; 
When that has gone off, I shall drop my 

old gun — 
And then stand at ease, for my service is 

done. 

Bibamus ad Classem vocatam " The Boys " 
Et eorum Tutorem cui nomen est " Noyes; " 
Et floreant, valeant, vigeant tarn, 
Non Peircius ipse enumeret quam ! 



THE OLD CRUISER 



Here 's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine, 
Forty times she 's crossed the line; 
Same old masts and sails and crew, 
Tight and tough and as good as new. 

Into the harbor she bravely steers 
Just as she 's done for these forty years, — 
Over her anchor goes, splash and clang ! 
Down her sails drop, rattle and bang ! 

Comes a vessel out of the dock 
Fresh and spry as a fighting- cock, 
Feathered with sails and spurred with 

steam, 
Heading out of the classic stream. 

Crew of a hundred all aboard, 
Every man as fine as a lord. 
Gay they look and proud they feel, 
Bowling along on even keel. 

On they float with wind and tide, — 
Gain at last the old ship's side; 
Every man looks down in turn, — 
Beads the name that 's on her stern. 



HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING 



129 



" Twenty-nine ! — Diable yon say ! 
That was in Skipper Kirkland's day ! 
What was the Flying Dutchman's name ? 
This old rover must be the same. 

" Ho ! yon Boatswain that walks the deck, 
How does it happen yon 're not a wreck ? 
One and another have come to grief, 
How have you dodged by rock and reef ? " 

Boatswain, lifting one knowing lid, 
Hitches his breeches and shifts his quid: 
" Hey ? What is it ? Who 's come to 

grief ? 
Louder, young swab, I 'm a little deaf." 

" I say, old fellow, what keeps your boat 
With all you jolly old boys afloat, 
When scores of vessels as good as she 
Have swallowed the salt of the bitter sea ? 

" [Many a crew from many a craft 
Goes drifting by on a broken raft 
Pieced from a vessel that clove the brine 
Taller and prouder than 'Twenty-nine. 

" Some capsized in an angry breeze, 
Some were lost in the narrow seas, 
Some on snags and some on sands 
Struck and perished and lost their hands. 

" Tell us young ones, you gray old man, 
What is your secret, if you can. 
We have a ship as good, as you, 
Show us how to keep our crew." 

So in his ear the youngster cries; 
Then the gray Boatswain straight re- 
plies: — 
" All your crew be sure you know, — 
Never let one of your shipmates go. 

" If he leaves you, change your tack, 
Follow him close and fetch him back; 
When you 've hauled him in at last, 
Grapple his flipper and hold him fast. 



y. 



If you 've wronged him, speak him fair, 
Say you 're sorry and make it square; 
If he 's wronged you, wink so tight 
None of you see what 's plain in sight. 

" When the world goes hard and wrong, 
Lend a hand to help him along; 



When his stockings have holes to darn, 
Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn. V 

" Once in a twelvemonth, come what may, 

Anchor your ship in a quiet bay, 

Call all hands and read the log, 

And give 'em a taste of grub and grog. 

" Stick to each other through thick and 

thin; 
All the closer as age leaks in; 
Squalls will blow and clouds will frown, 
But stay by your ship till you all go 

down ! " 

ADDED FOR THE ALUMNI MEETING, 
JUNE 29, 1869. 

So the gray Boatswain of 'Twenty- nine 
Piped to " The Boys " as they crossed the 

line ; 
Round the cabin sat thirty guests, 
Babes of the nurse with a thousand breasts. 

There were the judges, grave and grand, 
Flanked by the priests on either hand ; 
There was the lord of wealth untold, 
And the dear good fellow in broadcloth old. 

Thirty men, from twenty towns, 

Sires and grandsires with silvered 

crowns, — 
Thirty school-boys all in a row, — 
Bens and Georges and Bill and Joe. 

In thirty goblets the wine was poured, 
But threescore gathered around the 

board, — 
For lo ! at the side of every chair 
A shadow hovered — we all were there ! 



HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEET- 
ING 

1869 

Thou Gracious Power, whose mercy lends 
The light of home, the smile of friends, 
Our gathered flock thine arms infold 
As in the peaceful days of old. 

Wilt thou not hear us while we raise, 
In sweet accord of solemn praise, 



i3° 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF ' 2 < 



The voices that have mingled long 
In joyous flow of mirth and song ? 

For all the blessings life has brought, 
For all its sorrowing hours have taught, 
For all we inourii, for all we keep, 
The hands we clasp, the loved that sleep; 

The noontide sunshine of the past, 
These brief, bright moments fading fast, 
The stars that gild our darkening years, 
The twilight ray from holier spheres ; 

We thank thee, Father ! let thy grace 
Our narrowing circle still embrace, 
Thy mercy shed its heavenly store, 
Thy peace be with us evermore ! 



y 



EVEN-SONG 

1870 



It may be, yes, it must be, Time that 
brings 
An end to mortal things, 
That sends the beggar Winter in the train 

Of Autumn's burdened wain, — 
Time, that is heir of all our earthly state, 

And knoweth well to wait 
Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to 
sea, 
If so it need must be, 
Ere he make good his claim and call his 
own 
Old empires overthrown, — 
Time, who can find no heavenly orb too 
large 
To hold its fee in charge, 
Nor any motes that fill its beam so small, 

But he shall care for all, — 
It may be, must be, — yes, he soon shall 
tire 
This hand that holds the lyre. 

Then ye who listened in that earlier day 

When to my careless lay 
I matched its chords and stole their first- 
born thrill, 

With untaught rudest skill 
Vexing a treble from the slender strings 

Thin as the locust sings 
When the shrill-crying child of summer's 
heat 

Pipes from its leafy seat, 



The dim pavilion of embowering green 

Beneath whose shadowy screen 
The small sopranist tries his single note 

Against the song-bird's throat, 
And all the echoes listen, but in vain ; 

They hear no answering strain, — 
Then ye who listened in that earlier day 

Shall sadly turn away, 

Saying, " The fire burns low, the hearth is 
cold 

That warmed our blood of old; 
Cover its embers and its half-burnt brands, 

And let us stretch our hands 
Over a brighter and fresh-kindled flame; 

Lo, this is not the same, 
The joyous singer of our morning time, 

Flushed high with lusty rhyme ! 
Speak kindly, for he bears a human heart, 

But whisper him apart, — 
Tell him the woods their autumn robes 
have shed 

And all their birds have fled, 
And shouting winds unbuild the naked 
nests 

They warmed with patient breasts; 
Tell him the sky is dark, the summer 
o'er, 

And bid him sing no more ! " 

Ah, welladay ! if words so cruel-kind 

A listening ear might find ! 
But who that hears the music in his soul 

Of rhythmic waves that roll 
Crested with gleams of fire, and as they 
flow 

Stir all the deeps below 
Till the great pearls no calm might ever 
reach 

Leap glistening on the beach, — 
Who that has known the passion and the 
pain, 

The rush through heart and brain, 
The joy so like a pang his hand is pressed 

Hard on his throbbing breast, 
When thou, whose smile is life and bliss 
and fame 

Hast set his pulse aflame, 
Muse of the lyre ! can say farewell to thee? 

Alas ! and must it be ? 

In many a clime, in many a stately tongue, 

The mighty bards have sung; 
To these the immemorial thrones belong 

And purple robes of song ; 



THE SMILING LISTENER 



13 



Yet the slight minstrel loves the slender 


Ere his warm wave its chilling clasp may 


tone 


feel 


His lips may call his own, 


Has twirled the miller's wheel. 


And finds the measure of the verse more 




sweet, 


The song has done its task that makes us 


Timed by his pulse's heat, 


bold 


Than all the hymniiigs of the laurelled 


"With secrets else untold, — 


throng. 


And mine has run its errand ; through the 


Say not I do him wrong, 


dews 


For Nature spoils her warblers, — them she 


I tracked the flying Muse : 


feeds 


The daughter of the morning touched my 


In lotus-growing meads 


lips 


And pours them subtle draughts from 


With roseate finger-tips ; 


haunted streams 


Whether I would or would not, I must 


That fill their souls with dreams. 


sing 




With the new choirs of spring; 


Full well I know the gracious mother's 


Now, as I watch the fading autumn day 


wiles 


And trill my softened lay, 


And dear delusive smiles ! 


I think of all that listened, and of one 


No callow fledgling of her singing brood 


For whom a brighter sun 


But tastes that witching food, 


Dawned at high summer's noon. Ah, com- 


And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, 


rades dear, 


And how the thrushes sing, 


Are not all gathered here ? 


Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest 


Our hearts have answered. — Yes ! they 


Flaps forth — we know the rest. 


hear our call : 


I own the weakness of the tuneful kind, — 


All gathered here ! all ! all ! 


Are not all harpers blind ? 




I sang too early, must I sing too late ? 




The lengthening shadows wait 


THE SMILING LISTENER 


The first pale stars of twilight, — yet how 




sweet 


1871 


The flattering whisper's cheat, — 




" Thou hast the fire no evening chill can 


Precisely. I see it. You all want to say 


tame, 


That a tear is too sad and a laugh is too gay ; 


Whose coals outlast its flame ! " 


You could stand a faint smile, you could 




manage a sigh, 


Farewell, ye carols of the laughing morn, 


But you value your ribs, and you don't 


Of earliest sunshine born ! 


want to cry. 


The sower flings the seed and looks not back 




Along his furrowed track; 


And why at our feast of the clasping of 


The reaper leaves the stalks for other 


hands 


hands 


Need we turn on the stream of our lachry- 


To gird with circling bands; 


mal glands ? 


The wind, earth's careless servant, truant- 


Though we see the white breakers of age 


born, 


on our bow, 


Blows clean the beaten corn 


Let us take a good pull in the jolly-boat 


And quits the thresher's floor, and goes his 


now ! 


way 
To sport with ocean's sprav; 


It 's hard if a fellow cannot feel content 


The headlong-stumbling rivulet scrambling 


When a banquet like this does n't cost him 


down 


a cent, 


To wash the sea-girt town, 


When his goblet and plate he may empty 


Still babbling of the green and billowy 


at will, 


waste 


And our kind Class Committee will settle 


Whose salt he longs to taste, 


the bill. 



132 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF ' 2 « 



And here 's your old friend, the identical 

bard 
Who has rhymed and recited you verse by 

the yard 
Since the days of the empire of Andrew 

the First 
Till you 're full to the brim and feel ready 

to burst. 

It 's awful to think of, — how year after 

year 
With his piece in his pocket he waits for 

you here; 
No matter who 's missing, there always is 

one 
To lug out his manuscript, sure as a gun. 

" Why won't he stop writing ? " Humanity 

cries: 
The answer is briefly, " He can't if he 

tries; 
He has played with his foolish old feather 

so long, 
That the goose-quill in spite of him cackles 

in song." 

You have watched him with patience from 

morning to dusk 
Since the tassel was bright o'er the green 

of the husk, 
And now — it's too bad — it's a pitiful 

job — 
He has shelled the ripe ear till he 's come 

to the cob. 

I see one face beaming — it listens so well 
There must be some music yet left in my 

shell — 
The wine of my soul is not thick on the 

lees; 
One string is unbroken, one friend I can 

please ! 

Dear comrade, the sunshine of seasons gone 

by 

Looks out from your tender and tear- 
moistened eye, 
A pharos of love on an ice-girdled coast, — 
Kind soul ! — Don't you hear me ? — He 's 
deaf as a post ! 

Can it be one of Nature's benevolent tricks 
That you grow hard of hearing as I grow 
prolix ? 



And that look of delight which would an- 
gels beguile 

Is the deaf man's prolonged unintelligent 
smile ? 

Ah! the ear may grow dull, and the eye 

may wax dim, 
But they still know a classmate — they 

can't mistake him; 
There is something to tell us, " That 's one 

of our band," 
Though we groped in the dark for a touch 

of his hand. 

Well, Time with his snuffers is prowling 

about 
And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff 

us out ; 
There 's a hint for us all in each pendulum 

tick, 
For we 're low in the tallow and long in the 

wick. 

You remember Rossini — you 've been at 

the play ? 
How his overture-endings keep crashing 

away 
Till you think, " It 's all over — it can't but 

stop now — 
That 's the screech and the bang of the 

final bow-wow." 

And you find you 're mistaken ; there 's 
lots more to come, 

More banging, more screeching of fiddle 
and drum, 

Till when the last ending is finished and 
done, 

You feel like a horse when the winning- 
post 's won. 

So I, who have sung to you, merry, or sad, 

Since the days when they called me a 
promising lad, 

Though I 've made you more rhymes than 
a tutor could scan, 

Have a few more still left, like the razor- 
strop man. 

Now pray don't be frightened — I 'm ready 

to stop 
My galloping anapests' clatter and pop — 
In fact, if you say so, retire from to-day 
! To the garret I left, on a poet's half-pay. 



OUR SWEET SINGER 



■33 



And yet — I can't help it — perhaps — who 
can tell ? 

You might miss the poor singer you treated 
so well, 

And confess you could stand him five min- 
utes or so, 

" It was so like old times we remember, you 
know." 

'T is not that the music can signify much, 
But then there are chords that awake with 

a touch, — 
And our hearts can find echoes of sorrow 

and joy 
To the winch of the minstrel who hails 

from Savoy. 

So this hand-organ tune that I cheerfully 

grind 
May bring the old places and faces to 

mind, 
And seen in the light of the past we recall 
The flowers that have faded bloom fairest 

of all ! 



OUR SWEET SINGER 

j. A. 

1872 

Oxe memory trembles on our lips ; 

It throbs in every breast; 
In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse, 

The shadow stands confessed. 

O silent voice, that cheered so long 
Our manhood's marching day, 

Without thy breath of heavenly song, 
How weary seems the way ! 

Vain every pictured phrase to tell 
Our sorrowing heart's desire, — 

The shattered harp, the broken shell, 
The silent unstrung lyre; 

For youth was round us while he sang; 

It glowed in every tone; 
With bridal chimes the echoes rang, 

And made the past our own. 

Oh blissful dream ! Our nursery joys 
We know must have an end, 

But love and friendship's broken toys 
May God's good angels mend ! 



The cheering smile, the voice of mirth 
And laughter's gay surprise 

That please the children born of earth, 
Why deem that Heaven denies ? 

Methinks in that refulgent sphere 
That knows not sun or moon, 

An earth-born saint might long to hear 
One verse of "Bonny Doon;" 

Or walking through the streets of gold 
In heaven's unclouded light, 

His lips recall the song of old 
And hum " The sky is bright." 

And can we smile when thou art dead ? 

Ah, brothers, even so ! 
The rose of summer will be red, 

In spite of winter's snow. 

Thou wouldst not leave us all in gloom 

Because thy song is still, 
Nor blight the banquet-garland's bloom 

With grief's untimely chill. 

The sighing wintry winds complain, — 
The singing bird has flown, — 

Hark ! heard I not that ringing strain, 
That clear celestial tone ? 

How poor these pallid phrases seem, 
How weak this tinkling line, 

As warbles through my waking dream 
That angel voice of thine ! 

Thy requiem asks a sweeter lay; 

It falters on my tongue; 
For all we vainly strive to say, 

Thou shouldst thyself have sung ! 



H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W. 

• 1873 

The dirge is played, the throbbing death- 
peal rung, 
The sad-voiced requiem sung; 
On each white urn where memory dwells 
The wreath of rustling immortelles 
Our loving hands have hung, 
And balmiest leaves have strown and ten- 
derest blossoms flung. 



134 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



The birds that filled the air with songs 
have flown, 
The wintry blasts have blown, 
And these for whom the voice of spring 
Bade the sweet choirs their carols sing 
Sleep in those chambers lone 
Where snows untrodden lie, unheard the 
night winds moan. 

We clasp them all in memory, as the vine 
Whose running stems untwine 
The marble shaft, and steal around 
The lowly stone, the nameless mound; 
With sorrowing hearts resign 
Our brothers true and tried, and close our 
broken line. 

How fast the lamps of life grow dim and die 
Beneath our sunset sky ! 
Still fading, as along our track 
We cast our saddened glances back, 
And while we vainly sigh 
The shadowy day recedes, the starry night 
draws nigh. 

As when from pier to pier across the tide 
With even keel we glide, 
The lights we left along the shore 
Grow less and less, while more, yet more 
New vistas open wide 
Of fair illumined streets and casements 
golden-eyed. 

Each closing circle of our sunlit sphere 
Seems to bring heaven more near: 
Can we not dream that those we love 
Are listening in the world above 
And smiling as they hear 
The voices known so well of friends that 
still are dear ? 

Does all that made us human fade away 
With this dissolving clay ? 
Nay, rather deem the blessed isles 
Are bright and gay with joyous smiles, 
That angels have their play, 
And saints that tire of song may claim 
their holiday. 

All else of earth may perish ; love alone 
Not heaven shall find outgrown ! 
Are they not here, our spirit guests, 
With love still throbbing in their breasts ? 
Once more let flowers be strown. 
Welcome, ye shadowy forms, we count you 



WHAT I HAVE COME FOR 
1873 



\ 



still 



our own 



I have come with my verses — I think I 

may claim 
It is not the first time I have tried on the 

same. 
They were puckered in rhyme, they were 

wrinkled in wit; 
But your hearts were so large that they 

made them a fit. 

I have come — not to tease you with more 

of my rhyme, 
But to feel as I did in the blessed old time; 
I want to hear him with the Brobdingnag 

laugh — 
We count him at least as three men and a 

half. 

I have come to meet judges so wise and so 

grand 
That 1 shake in my shoes while they 're 

shaking my hand; 
And the prince among merchants who put 

back the crown 
When they tried to enthrone him the King 

of the Town. 

I have come to see George — Yes, I think 

there are four, 
If they all were like these I could wish 

there were more. 
I have come to see one whom we used to 

call "Jim," 
I want to see — oh, don't I want to see 

him? 

I have come to grow young — on my word 

I declare 
I have thought I detected a change in my 

hair ! 
One hour with " The I$oys " will restore it 

to brown — 
And a wrinkle or two I expect to rub down. 

Yes, that 's what I 've come for, as all of 

us come; 
When I meet the dear Boys I could wish I 

were dumb. 
You asked me, you know, but it 's spoiling 

the fun; 
I have told what I came for; my ditty is 

done. 



OUR BANKER 



135 





He 's a thief, we must own, but how many 


OUR BANKER 


there be 




That rob us less gently and fairly than he: 


1874 


He has stripped the green leaves that were 




over vis all, 


Old Time, in whose bank we deposit our 


But they let in the sunshine as fast as they 


notes, 


fall. 


Is a miser who always wants guineas for 




groats ; 


Young beauties may ravish the world with 


He keeps all his customers still in arrears 


a glance 


By lending them minutes and charging 


As they languish in song, as they float in 


them years. 


the dance, — 




They are grandmothers now we remember 


The twelvemonth rolls round and we never 


as girls, 


forget 


And the comely white cap takes the place 


On the counter before us to pay him our 


of the curls. 


debt. 




We reckon the marks he has chalked on 


But the sighing and moaning and groaning 


the door, 


are o'er, 


Pay up and shake hands and begin a new 


We are pining and moping and sleepless 


score. 


no more, 




And the hearts that were thumping like 


How long he will lend us, how much we 


ships on the rocks 


may owe, 


Beat as quiet and steady as meeting-house 


No angel will tell us, no mortal may 


clocks. 


know. 




At fivescore, at fourscore, at threescore 


The trump of ambition, loud sounding and 


and ten, 


shrill, 


He may close the account with a stroke of 


May blow its long blast, but the echoes are 


his pen. 


still, 




The spring-tides are past, but no billow 


This only we know, — amid sorrows and 


may reach 


joys 


The spoils they have landed far up on the 


Old Time has been easy and kind with 


beach. 


" The Boys." 




Though he must have and will have and 


We see that Time robs us, we know that 


does have his pay, 


he cheats, 


We have found him good-natured enough 


But we still find a charm in his pleasant 


in his way. 


deceits, 




While he leaves the remembrance of all 


He never forgets us, as others will do, — 


that was best, 


I am sure he knows me, and I think he 


Love, friendship, and hope, and the promise 


knows you, 


of rest. 


For I see on your foreheads a mark that 




he lends 


Sweet shadows of twilight ! how calm their 


As a sign he remembers to visit his friends. 


repose, 




While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast 


In the shape of a classmate (a wig on his 


of the rose ! 


crown, — 


How blest to the toiler his hour of release 


His day-book and ledger laid carefully 


When the vesper is heard with its whisper 


down) 


of peace ! 


He has welcomed us yearly, a glass in his 




hand, 


Then here 's to the wrinkled old miser, 


And pledged the good health of our bro- 


our friend ; 


therly band. 


May he send us his bills to the century's end, 



136 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



And lend us the moments no sorrow alloys, 
Till he squares his account with the last of 
"The Boys." 



FOR CLASS MEETING 

1875 

It is a pity and a shame — alas ! alas ! I 

know it is, 
To tread the trodden grapes again, but so 

it has been, so it is; 
The purple vintage long is past, with 

ripened clusters bursting so 
They filled the wine-vats to the brim, — 

't is strange you will be thirsting so ! 

Too well our faithful memory tells what 

might be rhymed or sung about, 
For all have sighed and some have wept 

since last year's snows were flung 

about; 
The beacon flame that fired the sky, the 

modest ray that gladdened us, 
A little breath has quenched their light, and 

deepening shades have saddened us. 

No more our brother's life is ours for cheer- 
ing or for grieving us, 

One only saduess they bequeathed, the sor- 
row of their leaving us; 

Farewell ! Farewell ! — I turn the leaf I 
read my chiming measure in; 

Who knows but something still is there a 
friend may find a pleasure in ? 

For who can tell by what he likes what other 

people's fancies are ? 
How all men think the best of wives their 

own particular Nancies are ? 
If what I sing you brings a smile, you will 

not stop to catechise, 
Nor read Bceotia's lumbering line with 

nicely scanning Attic eyes. 

Perhaps the alabaster box that Mary broke 
so lovingly, 

While Judas looked so sternly on, the Mas- 
ter so approvingly, 

Was not so fairly wrought as those that 
Pilate's wife and daughters had, 

Or many a dame of Judah's line that drank 
of Jordan's waters had. 



Perhaps the balm that cost so dear, as some 

remarked officiously, 
The precious nard that filled the room with 

fragrance so deliciously, 
So oft recalled in storied page and sung in 

verse melodious, 
The dancing girl had thought too cheap, — 

that daughter of Herodias. 

Where now are all the mighty deeds that 

Herod boasted loudest of ? 
Where now the flashing jewelry the te- 

trarch's wife was proudest of ? 
Yet still to hear how Mary loved, all tribes 

of men are listening, 
And still the sinful woman's tears like stars 

in heaven are glistening. 

'T is not the gift our hands have brought, 

the love it is we bring with it, — 
The minstrel's lips may shape the song, his 

heart in tune must sing with it; 
And so we love the simple lays, and wish 

we might have more of them, 
Our poet brothers sing for us, — there must 

be half a score of them. 

It may be that of fame and name our voices 
once were emulous, — 

With deeper thoughts, with tenderer throbs 

• their softening tones are tremu- 

lous ; 

The dead seem listening as of old, ere 
friendship was bereft of them; 

The living wear a kinder smile, the remnant 
that is left of them. 

Though on the once unfurrowed brows the 

harrow-teeth of Time may show, 
Though all the strain of crippling years the 

halting feet of rhyme may show, 
We look and hear with melting hearts, for 

what we all remember is 
The morn of Spring, nor heed how chill the 

sky of gray November is. 

Thanks to the gracious powers above from 

all mankind that singled us, 
And dropped the pearl of friendship in the 

cup they kindly mingled us, 
And bound us in a wreath of flowers with 

hoops of steel knit under it; — 
Nor time, nor space, nor chance, nor change,, 

nor death himself shall sunder it ! 



AD AMICOS" 



i37 



"AD AMICOS" 
1S76 

" Dumque virent genua 
Et decet, obducta solvatur fonte senectus." 

The niuse of boyhood's fervid hour 

Grows tame as skies get chill and haz}-; 
Where once she sought a passion-flower, 

She only hopes to find a daisy. 
Well, who the changing world bewails ? 

Who asks to have it stay unaltered ? 
Shall grown-up kittens chase their tails ? 

Shall colts be never shod or haltered ? 

Are we " The Boys " that used to make 

The tables ring witli noisy follies ? 
Whose deep-lunged laughter oft would 
shake 

The ceiling with its thunder-volleys ? 
Are we the youths with lips unshorn, 

At beauty's feet unwrinkled suitors, 
Whose memories reach tradition's morn, — 

The days of prehistoric tutors ? 

" The Boys" we knew, — but who are 
these 
Whose heads might serve for Plutarch's 
sages, 
Or Fox's martyrs, if you please, 

Or hermits of the dismal ages ? 
" The Bovs " we knew — can these be 
those ? 
Their cheeks with morning's blush were 
painted ; — 
Where are the Harrys, Jims, and Joes 
With whom we once were well ac- 
quainted ? 

If we are they, we 're not the same ; 

If they are we, why then they 're mask- 
ing; 
Do tell us, neighbor What 's-your-name, 
Who are you ? — What '3 the use of 
asking ? 
You once were George, or Bill, or Ben; 
There's you, yourself — there's you, 
that other — 
I know you now — I knew you then — 
You used to be your younger brother ! 

You both are all our own to-day, — 
But ah ! I hear a warning whisper; 

Yon roseate hour that flits away 
Repeats the Roman's sad paulisper. 



Come back ! come back ! we 've need of 
you 

To pay you for your word of warning; 
We '11 bathe your wings in brighter dew 

Than ever wet the lids of morning ! 

Behold this cup; its mystic wine 

No alien's lip has ever tasted; 
The blood of friendship's clinging vine, 

Still flowing, flowing, yet un wasted: 
Old Time forgot his running sand 

And laid his hour-glass down to fill it, 
And Death himself with gentle hand 

Has touched the chalice, not to spill it. 

Each bubble rounding at the brim 

Is rainbowed with its magic story; 
The shining days with age grown dim 

Are dressed again in robes of glory; 
In all its freshness spring returns 

With song of birds and blossoms tender ; 
Once more the torch of passion burns, 

And youth is here in all its splendor ! 

Hope swings her anchor like a toy, 

Love laughs and shows the silver arrow 
We knew so well as man and boy, — 

The shaft that stings through bone and 
marrow; 
Again our kindling pulses beat, 

With tangled curls our fingers dally, 
And bygone beauties smile as sweet 

As fresh-blown lilies of the valley. 

O blessed hour ! we may forget 

Its wreaths, its rhymes, its songs, its 
laughter, 
But not the loving eyes we met, 

Whose light shall gild the dim hereafter. 
How every heart to each grows warm ! 

Is one in sunshine's ray ? We share it. 
Is one in sorrow's blinding storm ? 

A look, a word, shall help him bear it. 

" The Boys " we were, " The Bovs " we '11 
be 
As long as three, as two, are creeping ; 
Then here 's to him — ah ! which is he ? — 

Who lives till all the rest are sleeping; 
A life with tranquil comfort blest, 

The young man's health, the rich man's 
plenty, 
All earth can give that earth has best, 
And heaven at fourscore years and 
twenty. 



133 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT 

1877 

I like, at times, to hear the steeples' 
chimes 
With sober thoughts impressively that 
mingle ; 
But sometimes, too, I rather like — don't 
you ? — 
To hear the music of the sleigh bells' 
jingle. 

I like full well the deep resounding swell 
Of mighty symphonies with chords in- 
woven; 
But sometimes, too, a song of Burns — 
don't you ? 
After a solemn storm-blast of Beetho- 
ven. 

Good to the heels the well-worn slipper 
feels 
When the tired player shuffles off the 
buskin; 
A page of Hood may do a fellow good 
After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin. 

Some works I find, — say Watts upon the 
Mind, — 
No matter though at first they seemed 
amusing, 
Not quite the same, but just a little tame 
After some five or six times' reperusing. 

So, too, at times when melancholy rhymes 
Or solemn speeches sober down a dinner, 
I 've seen it 's true, quite often, — have n't 
you? — 
The best-fed guests perceptibly grow 
thinner. 

Better some jest (in proper terms ex- 
pressed) 
Or story (strictly moral) even if musty, 
Or song we sung when these old throats 
were young, — 
Something to keep our souls from get- 
ting rusty. 

The poorest scrap from memory's ragged 
lap 
Comes like an heirloom from a dear 
dead mother — 



Hush ! there 's a tear that has no business 
here, 
A half-formed sigh that ere its birth we 
smother. 

We cry, we laugh; ah, life is half and half, 
Now bright and joyous as a song of 
Herrick's, 
Then chill and bare as funeral-minded 
Blair; 
As fickle as a female in hysterics. 

If I could make you cry I would n't try ; 
If you have hidden smiles I 'd like to 
find them, 
And that although, as well I ought to 
know, 
The lips of laughter have a skull behind 
them. 

Yet when I think we may be on the brink 
Of having Freedom's banner to dispose 
of, 
All crimson - hued, because the Nation 
would 
Insist on cutting its own precious nose 
off, 

I feel indeed as if we rather need 

A sermon such as preachers tie a text 
on. 
If Freedom dies because a ballot lies, 
She earns her grave ; 't is time to call the 
sexton ! 

But if a fight can make the matter right, 
Here are we, classmates, thirty men of 
mettle; 
We 're strong and tough, we 've lived nigh 
long enough, — 
What if the Nation gave it us to settle ? 

The tale would read like that illustrious 
deed 
When Curtius took the leap the gap 
that filled in, 
Thus: "Fivescore years, good friends, as 
it appears, 
At last this people split on Hayes and 
Tilden. 

" One half cried, ' See ! the choice is S. J. 
T. ! ' 
And one half swore as stoutly it was t' 
other; 



r\ 




HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT 



i39 



Both drew the knife to save the Nation's 
life 
By wholesale vivisection of each other. 

u Then rose in mass that monumental 
Class, — 
1 Hold ! hold ! ' they cried, ' give us, 
give us the daggers ! ' 
' Content ! content ! ' exclaimed with one 
consent 
The gaunt ex-rebels and the carpet-bag- 
gers. 

" Fifteen each side, the combatants divide, 
So nicely balanced are their predilections; 

And first of all a tear-drop each lets fall, 
A tribute to their obsolete affections. 

" Man facing man, the sanguine strife be- 
gan, 
Jack, Jim and Joe against Tom, Dick 
and Harry, 
Each several pair its own account to 
square, 
Till both were down or one stood .soli- 
tary. 

"And the great fight raged furious all the 

night 

Till every integer was made a fraction; 

Reader, wouldst know what history has to 

show 

As net result of the above transaction ? 

"Whole coat-tails, four ; stray fragments, 
several score ; 
A heap of spectacles ; a deaf man's trum- 
pet; 
Six lawyers' briefs ; seven pocket-handker- 
chiefs; 
Twelve canes wherewith the owners used 
to stump it; 

" Odd rubber-shoes; old gloves of different 
hues; 
Tax-bills, — unpaid, — and several empty 
purses; 
And, saved from harm by some protecting 
charm, 
A printed page with Smith's immortal 
verses ; 

" Trifles that claim no very special name, — 
Some useful, others chiefly ornamental; 



Pins, buttons, rings, and other trivial things, 
With various wrecks, capillary and dental. 

" Also, one flag, — 't was nothing but a rag, 
And what device it bore it little matters ; 
Bed, white, and blue, but rent all through 
and through, 
' Union forever ' torn to shreds and tat- 
ters. 

" They fought so well not one was left to 
tell 
Which got the largest share of cuts and 
slashes ; 
When heroes meet, both sides are bound to 
beat; 
They telescoped like cars in railroad 
smashes. 

" So the great split that baffled human wit 
And might have cost the lives of twenty 
millions, 

As all may see that know the rule of three, 
Was settled just as well by these civilians. 

" As well. Just so. Not worse, not better. 
No, 
Next morning found the Nation still 
divided ; 
Since all were slain, the inference is plain 
They left the point they fought for un- 
decided." 



If not quite true, as I have told it you, — 

This tale of mutual extermination, 
To minds perplexed with threats of what 
comes next, 
Perhaps may furnish food for contem- 
plation. 

To cut men's throats to help them count 
their votes 
Is asinine — nay, worse — ascidian folly ; 
Blindness like that would scare the mole 
and bat, 
And make the liveliest monkey melan- 
choly. 

I say once more, as I have said before, 
If voting for our Tildens and our Hayeses 

Means only fight, then, Liberty, good night ! 
Pack up your ballot-box and go to blazes ! 



140 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



Unfurl your blood-red flags, you murderous 
hags, 
Yonpetroleuses of Paris, fierce and foamy; 
We '11 sell our stock in Plymouth's blasted 
rock, 
Pull up our stakes and migrate to Daho- 
mey ! 



THE LAST SURVIVOR 

1878 

Yes ! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are 

going, going fast, 
And the thought comes strangely o'er me, 

who will live to be the last ? 
When the twentieth century's sunbeams 

climb the f ar-oif eastern hill, 
With his ninety winters burdened, will he 

greet the morning still ? 

Will he stand with Harvard's nurslings 

when they hear their mother's call 
And the old and young are gathered in the 

many alcoved hall ? 
Will he answer to the summons when they 

range themselves in line 
And the young mustachioed marshal calls 

out " Class of '29 " ? 

Methinks I see the column as its lengthened 
ranks appear 

In the sunshine of the morrow of the nine- 
teen hundredth year ; 

Through the yard 't is creeping, winding, 
by the walls of dusky red, — 

What shape is that which totters at the long 
procession's head ? 

Who knows this ancient graduate of four- 
score years and ten, — 

What place he held, what name he bore 
among the sons of men ? 

So speeds the curious question; its answer 
travels slow; 

" ' T is the last of sixty classmates of 
seventy years ago." 

His figure shows but dimly, his face I 

scarce can see, — 
There 's something that reminds me, — it 

looks like — is it he ? 



He ? Who f No voice may whisper what 
wrinkled brow shall claim 

The wreath of stars that circles our last 
survivor's name. 

Will he be some veteran minstrel, left to 

pipe in feeble rhyme 
All the stories and the glories of our gay 

and golden time ? 
Or some quiet, voiceless brother in whose 

lonely, loving breast 
Fond memory broods in silence, like a dove 

upon her nest ? 

Will it be some old Emeritus, who taught 

so long ago 
The boys that heard him lecture have 

heads as white as snow ? 
Or a pious, painful preacher, holding forth 

from year to year 
Till his colleague got a colleague whom the 

young folks flocked to hear ? 

Will it be a rich old merchant in a square- 
tied white cravat, 

Or selectman of a village in a pre-historic 
hat? 

Will his dwelling be a mansion in a marble- 
fronted row, 

Or a homestead by a hillside where the 
huckleberries grow ? 

I can see our one survivor, sitting lonely by 

himself, — 
All his college text -books round him, 

ranged in order on their shelf; 
There are classic " interliuers " filled with 

learning's choicest pith, 
Each cum notis variorum, quas recensuit doctus 

Smith; 

Physics, metaphysics, logic, mathematics — 
all the lot 

Every wisdom - crammed octavo he has 
mastered and forgot, 

With the ghosts of dead professors stand- 
ing guard beside them all; 

And the room is full of shadows which 
their lettered backs recall. 

How the past spreads out in vision with its 
far receding train, 

Like a long embroidered arras in the cham- 
bers of the brain, 



THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS 



141 



From opening manhood's morning when 
first we learned to grieve 

To the fond regretful moments of our sor- 
row-saddened eve ! 

What early shadows darkened our idle 

summer's joy 
"When death snatched roughly from us that 

lovely bright-eyed boy ! 
The years move swiftly onwards ; the 

" deadly shafts fall fast, — 
Till all have dropped around him — lo, 

there he stands, — the last ! 

Their faces flit before him, some rosy-hued 

and fair, 
Some strong in iron manhood, some worn 

with toil and care; 
Their smiles no more shall greet him on 

cheeks with pleasure flushed ! 
The friendly hands are folded, the pleasant 

voices hushed ! 

My picture sets me dreaming; alas ! and 

can it be 
Those two familiar faces we never more 

may see ? 
In every entering footfall I think them 

drawing near, 
With every door that opens I say, "At 

last they 're here ! " 

The willow bends unbroken when angry 

tempests blow, 
The stately oak is levelled and all its 

strength laid low ; 
So fell that tower of manhood, undaunted, 

patient, strong, 
White with the gathering snowflakes, who 

faced the storm so long. 

And he, — what subtle phrases their vary- 
ing light must blend 

To paint as each remembers our many- 
featured friend ! 

His wit a flash auroral that laughed in 
every look, 

His talk a sunbeam broken on the ripples 
of a brook, 

Or, fed from thousand sources, a fountain's 

glittering jet, 
Or careless handfuls scattered of diamond 

sparks unset; 



Ah, sketch him, paint him, mould him in 

every shape you will, 
He was himself — the only — the one un- 

pictured still ! 

Farewell ! our skies are darkened and yet 

the stars will shine, 
We '11 close our ranks together and still 

fall into line 
Till one is left, one only, to mourn for all 

the rest; 
And Heaven bequeath their memories to 

him who loves us best ! 



THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL 
BLAS 

A MODERNIZED VERSION 
1879 

I don't think I feel much older; I 'm 

aware I 'm rather gray, 
But so are many young folks; I meet 'em 

every day. 
I confess I 'in more particular in what I 

eat and drink, 
But one's taste improves with culture; 

that is all it means, I think. 

Can you read as once you used to ? Well, 

the printing is so bad, 
No young folks' eyes can read it like the 

books that once we had. 
Are you quite as quick of hearing ? Please 

to say that once again. 
Don't I use plain words, your Reverence ? 

Yes, I often use a cane, 

Bat it 's not because I need it, — no, I al- 
ways liked a stick; 

And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well 
it should be thick. 

Oh, I 'm smart, I 'm spry, I 'm lively, — 
I can walk, yes, that I can, 

On the days I feel like walking, just as 
well as you, young man ! 

Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every 

day ? 
Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that 

always was my way. 



142 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty 

years ago ? 
Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 

't was always so. 

Don't you find it sometimes happens that you 
can't recall a name ? 

Yes, I know such lots of people, — but my 
memory 's not to blame. 

What ! You think my memory 's fail- 
ing ! Why, it 's just as bright and 
clear, — 

I remember my great-grandma ! She 's 
been dead these sixty year ! 

Is your voice a little trembly ? Well, it may 
be, now and then, 

But I write as well as ever with a good old- 
fashioned pen ; 

It 's the Gillotts make the trouble, — not 
at all my finger-ends, — 

That is why my hand looks shaky when I 
sign for dividends. 

Don't you stoop a little, walking f It's a 

way I 've always had, 
I have always been round-shouldered, ever 

since I was a lad. 
Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings f Yes, 

I own it — that is true. 
Don't you tell old stories over ? I am not 

aware I do. 

Don't you stay at home of evenings f Don't 

you love a cushioned seat 
In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers 

on your feet f 
Don't you wear warm fleecy flannels ? Don't 

you muffle up your throat ? 
Don't you like to have one help you when 

you 're putting on your coat ? 

Don't you like old books you 've dogs-eared, 

you can't remember when ? 
Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to 

bed at ten ? 
How many cronies can you count of all you 

used to know 
Who called you by your Christian name some 

fifty years ago ? 

How look the prizes to you that used to fire 

your brain f 
You 've reared your mound — how high is it 

above the level plain ? 



You 've drained the brimming golden cup that 

made your fancy reel, 
You 've slept the giddy potion off, — now tell 

us how you feel ! 

You 've watched the harvest ripening till every 

stem was cropped, 
You 've seen the rose of beauty fade till every 

petal dropped, 
You've told your thought, you've done your 

task, you 've tracked your dial round, 
— I backing down ! Thank Heaven, not 

yet ! I 'm hale and brisk and sound, 

And good for many a tussle, as you shall 

live to see; 
My shoes are not quite ready yet, — don't 

think you 're rid of me ! 
Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he 

was older far, 
And where will you be if I live to beat old 

Thomas Parr ? 

Ah well, — / know, — at every age life has a 

certain charm, — 
You 're going ? Come, permit me, please, I 

beg you '11 take my arm. 
I take your arm ! Why take your arm ? 

I 'd thank you to be told 
I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so 

very old ! 



THE SHADOWS 

1880 

" How many have gone ? " was the ques- 
tion of old 
Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels 
bereft; 
Alas ! for too often the death-bell has 
tolled, 
And the question we ask is, " How many 
are left?" 

Bright sparkled the wine; there were fifty 
that quaffed; 
For a decade had slipped and had taken 
but three. 
How they frolicked and sung, how they 
shouted and laughed, 
Like a school full of boys from their 
benches set free ! 



BENJAMIN PEIRCE 



143 



There were speeches and toasts, there were 
stories and rhymes, 
The hall shook its sides with their mer- 
riment's noise; 
As they talked and lived over the college- 
day times, — 
No wonder they kept their old name of 
" The Boys " ! 

The seasons moved on in their rhythmical 
flow 
With mornings like maidens that pouted 
or smiled, 
With the bud and the leaf and the fruit 
and the snow, 
And the year-books of Time in his al- 
coves were piled. 

There were forty that gathered where fifty 
had met; 
Some locks had got silvered, some lives 
had grown sere, 
But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as 
yet) 
And the song of the singers rose ringing 
and clear. 

Still flitted the years; there were thirty 
that came; 
" The Boys " they were still, and they 
answered their call; 
There were foreheads of care, but the 
smiles were the same, 
And the chorus rang loud through the 
garlanded hall. 

The hour - hand moved on, and they 
gathered again; 
There were twenty that joined in the 
hymn that was sung; 
But ah ! for our song-bird we listened in 
vain, — 
The crystalline tones like a seraph's that 
rung ! 

How narrow the circle that holds us to- 
night ! 
How many the loved ones that greet us 
no more, 
As we meet like the stragglers that come 
from the fight, 
Like the mariners flung from a wreck on 
the shore ! 



We look through the twilight for those we 
have lost; 
The stream rolls between us, and yet 
they seem near; 
Already outnumbered by those who have 
crossed, 
Our band is transplanted, its home is not 
here ! 

They smile on us still — is it only a 
dream ? — 
While fondly or proudly their names we 
recall; 
They beckon — they come — they are 
crossing the stream — 
Lo ! the Shadows ! the Shadows ! room 
— room for them all ! 

BENJAMIN PEIRCE 

ASTRONOMER, MATHEMATICIAN 
1809-188O 



For him the Architect of all 
Unroofed our planet's starlit hall; 
Through voids unknown to worlds unseen 
His clearer vision rose serene. 

With us on earth he walked by day, 
His midnight path how far away ! 
We knew him not so well who knew 
The patient eyes his soul looked through; 

For who his untrod realm could share 
Of us that breathe this mortal air, 
Or camp in that celestial tent 
Whose fringes gild our firmament ? 

How vast the workroom where he brought 
The viewless implements of thought ! 
The wit how subtle, how profound, 
That Nature's tangled webs unwound; 

That through the clouded matrix saw 
The crystal planes of shaping law, 
Through these the sovereign skill that 

planned, — 
The Father's care, the Master's hand ! 

To him the wandering stars revealed 
The secrets in their cradle sealed: 



144 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 



The far-off, frozen sphere that swings 
Through ether, zoued with lucid rings; 

The orb that rolls in dim eclipse 
Wide wheeling round its long ellipse, — 
His name Urania writes with these 
And stamps it on her Pleiades. 

We knew him not ? Ah, well we knew 
The manly soul, so brave, so true, 
The cheerful heart that conquered age, 
The childlike silver-bearded sage. 

No more his tireless thought explores 
The azure sea with golden shores; 
Rest, wearied frame ! the stars shall keep 
A loving watch where thou shalt sleep. 

Farewell ! the spirit needs must rise, 
So long a tenant of the skies, — 
Rise to that home all worlds above 
Whose sun is God, whose light is love. 

IN THE TWILIGHT 

1882 

Not bed-time yet ! The night- winds blow, 
The stars are out, — full well we know 

The nurse is on the stair, 
With hand of ice and cheek of snow, 
And frozen lips that whisper low, 
"Come, children, it is time to go 

My peaceful couch to share." 

No years a wakeful heart can tire; 
Not bed-time yet ! Come, stir the fire 

And warm your dear old hands; 
Kind Mother Earth we love so well 
Has pleasant stories yet to tell 
Before we hear the curfew bell; 

Still glow the burning brands. 

Not bed-time yet ! We long to know 
What wonders time has yet to show, 

What unborn years shall bring; 
What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, 
What lessons Science waits to teach, 
What sermons there are left to preach, 

What poems yet to sing. 

What next ? we ask ; and is it true 
The sunshine falls on nothing new, 
As Israel's king declared ? 



Was ocean ploughed with harnessed fire ? 
Were nations coupled with a wire ? 
Did Tarshish telegraph to Tyre ? 
How Hiram would have stared ! 

And what if Sheba's curious queen, 
Who came to see, — and to be seen, — 

Or something new to seek, 
And swooned, as ladies sometimes do, 
At sights that thrilled her through and 

through, 
Had heard, as she was " coming to," 

A locomotive's shriek, 

And seen a rushing railway train 
As she looked out along the plain 

From David's lofty tower, — 
A mile of smoke that blots the sky 
And blinds the eagles as they fly 
Behind the cars that thunder by 

A score of leagues an hour ! 

See to my fiat lux respond 

This little slumbering fire-tipped wand, — 

One touch, — it bursts in flame ! 
Steal me a portrait from the sun, — 
One look, — and lo ! the picture done ! 
Are these old tricks, King Solomon, 

We lying moderns claim ? 

Could you have spectroscoped a star ? 
If both those mothers at your bar, 

The cruel and the mild, 
The young and tender, old and tough, 
Had said, " Divide, — you 're right, though 

rough, " — 
Did old Judea know enough 

To etherize the child ? 

These births of time our eyes have seen, 
With but a few brief years between; 

What wonder if the text, 
For other ages doubtless true, 
For coming years will never do, — 
Whereof we all should like a few, 

If but to see what next. 

If such things have been, such may be ; 
Who would not like to live and see — 

If Heaven may so ordain — 
What waifs undreamed of, yet in store, 
The waves that roll forevermore 
On life's long beach may cast ashore 

From out the mist-clad main ? 



THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP 



J 45 



Will Earth to pagan dreams return 
To find from misery's painted urn 

That all save hope has flown, — 
Of Book and Church and Priest bereft, 
The Rock of Ages vainly cleft, 
Life's compass gone, its anchor left, 

Left, — lost, — in depths unknown ? 

Shall Faith the trodden path pursue 
The crux ansata wearers knew 

Who sleep with folded hands, 
"Where, like a naked, lidless eye, 
The staring Nile rolls wandering by 
Those mountain slopes that climb the sky 

Above the drifting sands ? 

Or shall a nobler Faith return, 
Its fanes a purer gospel learn, 

With holier anthems ring, 
And teach us that our transient creeds 
Were but the perishable seeds 
Of harvests sown for larger needs, 

That ripening years shall bring ? 

Well, let the present do its best, 
We trust our Maker for the rest, 

As on our way we plod; 
Our souls, full dressed in fleshly suits, 
Love air and sunshine, flowers and fruits, 
The daisies better than their roots 

Beneath the grassy sod. 

Not bed-time yet ! The full-blown flower 
Of all the year — this evening hour — 

With friendship's flame is bright; 
Life still is sweet, the heavens are fair, 
Though fields are brown and woods are 

bare, 
And many a joy is left to share 

Before we say Good-night ! 

And when, our cheerful evening past, 
The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, 

Ere on her lap we lie 
In wearied nature's sweet repose, 
At peace with all her waking foes, 
Our lips shall murmur, ere they close, 

Good-night ! and not Good-by ! 

A LOVING-CUP SONG 

1883 

Come, heap the fagots ! Ere we go 
A train the cheerful hearth shall irlow; 



We '11 have another blaze, my boys ! 
When clouds are black and snows are 

white, 
Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light 
They stole from summer days, my boys, 
They stole from summer days. 

And let the Loving-Cup go round, 

The Cup with blessed memories crowned, 

That flows whene'er we meet, my boys; 
No draught will hold a drop of sin 
If love is only well stirred in 

To keep it sound and sweet, my boys, 
To keep it sound and sweet. 

Give me, to pin upon my breast, 
The blossoms twain I love the best, 

A rosebud and a pink, my boys; 
Their leaves shall nestle next my heart, 
Their perfumed breath shall own its part 

In every health we drink, my boys, 
In every health we drink. 

The breathing blossoms stir my blood, 
Methinks I see the lilacs bud 

And hear the bluebirds sing, my boys; 
Why not ? Yon lusty oak has seen 
Full tenscore years, yet leaflets green 

Peep out with every spring, my boys, 
Peep out with every spring. 

Old Time his rusty scythe may whet, 
The unmowed grass is glowing yet 

Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; 
And if the crazy dotard ask, 
Is love worn out ? Is life a task ? 

We '11 bravely answer No ! my boys, 
We '11 bravely answer No ! 

For life's bright taper is the same 
Love tipped of old with rosy flame 

That heaven's own altar lent, my boys, 
To glow in every cup we fill 
Till lips are mute and hearts are still, 

Till life and love are spent, my boys, 
Till life and love are spent. 

THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP 
1884 

She gathered at her slender waist 
The beauteous robe she wore; 

Its folds a golden belt embraced, 
One rose-hued gem it bore. 



146 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF 



'29 



The girdle shrank; its lessening round 

Still kept the shining gem, 
But now her flowing locks it bound, 

A lustrous diadem. 

And narrower still the circlet grew; 

Behold ! a glittering band, 
Its roseate diamond set anew, 

Her neck's white column spanned. 

Suns rise and set; the straining clasp 

The shortened links resist, 
Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp 

The diamond, on her wrist. 

At length, the round of changes past 
The thieving years could bring, 

The jewel, glittering to the last, 
Still sparkles in a ring. 

So, link by link, our friendships part, 

So loosen, break, and fall, 
A narrowing zone ; the loving heart 

Lives changeless through them all. 



THE LYRE OF ANACREON 
1885 

The minstrel of the classic lay 

Of love and wine who sings 
Still found the fingers run astray 

That touched the rebel strings. 

Of Cadmus he would fain have sung, 

Of Atreus and his line ; 
But all the jocund echoes rung 

With songs of love and wine. 

Ah, brothers ! I would fain have caught 
Some fresher fancy's gleam ; 

My truant accents find, unsought, 
The old familiar theme. 

Love, Love ! but not the sportive child 
With shaft and twanging bow, 

Whose random arrows drove us wild 
Some threescore years ago; 

Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, 

The urchin blind and bare, 
But Love, with spectacles and staff, 

And scanty, silvered hair. 



Our heads with frosted locks are white, 
Our roofs are thatched with snow, 

But red, in chilling winter's spite, 
Our hearts and hearthstones glow. 

Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, 
And while the running sands 

Their golden thread unheeded spin, 
He warms his frozen hands. 

Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, 

And waft this message o'er 
To all we miss, from all we meet 

On life's fast-crumbling shore: 

Say that, to old affection true, 
We hug the narrowing chain 

That binds our hearts, — alas, how few 
The links that yet remain ! 

The fatal touch awaits them all 
That turns the rocks to dust; 

From year to year they break and fall, — 
They break, but never rust. 

Say if one note of happier strain 
This worn-out harp afford, — 

One throb that trembles, not in vain, — 
Their memory lent its chord. 

Say that when Fancy closed her wings 
And Passion quenched his fire, 

Love, Love, still echoed from the strings 
As from Anacreon's lyre ! 



THE OLD TUNE 

THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION 



This shred of song you bid me bring 
Is snatched from fancy's embers; 

Ah, when the lips forget to sing, 
The faithful heart remembers ! 

Too swift the wings of envious Time 
To wait for dallying phrases, 

Or woven strands of labored rhyme 
To thread their cunning mazes. 

A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain 
Its magic breath discloses 

Our life's long vista through a lane 
Of threescore summers' roses ! 



THE BROKEN CIRCLE 



147 



One language years alone can teach : 
Its roots are young affections 

That feel their way to simplest speech 
Through silent recollections. 

That tongue is ours. How few the words 
We need to know a brother ! 

As simple are the notes of birds, 
Yet well they know each other. 

This freezing month of ice and snow 
That brings our lives together 

Lends to our year a living glow 
That warms its wintry weather. 

So let us meet as eve draws nigh, 
And life matures and mellows, 

Till Nature whispers with a sigh, 
" Good-night, my dear old fellows ! " 



THE BROKEN CIRCLE 

1887 

[What is half a century to a place like 
Stonehenge ? Xothing dwarfs au individual 
life like one of these massive, almost unchang- 
ing mouuments of an antiquity which refuses 
to be measured. . . . The broken circle of 
stones, some in their original position, some 
bending over like old men. some lying pros- 
trate, suggested the thoughts which took form 
in the following verses. Our Hundred Days 
in Europe, pp. 110, 111.] 

I stood on Sarum's treeless plain, 
The waste that careless Nature owns; 

Lone tenants of her bleak domain, 

Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones. 

Upheaved in many a billowy mound 
The sea-like, naked turf arose, 

Where wandering flocks went nibbling 
round 
The mingled graves of friends and foes. 

The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, 
This windy desert roamed in turn; 

Unmoved these mighty blocks remain 
Whose story none that lives may learn. 

Erect, half buried, slant or prone, 

These awful listeners, blind and dumb, 

Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, 
As wave on wave they go and come. 



" Who are you, giants, whence and why ? " 
I stand and ask in blank amaze; 

My soul accepts their mute reply: 
" A mystery, as are you that gaze. 

" A silent Orpheus w r rought the charm 
From riven rocks their spoils to bring; 

A nameless Titan lent his arm 
To range us in our magic ring. 

" But Time with still and stealthy stride, 
That climbs and treads and levels all, 

That bids the loosening keystone slide, 
And topples down the crumbling wall, — 

" Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, 
Leans on these w r recks that press the 
sod; 
They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, 
And strew the turf their priests have 
trod. 

"No more our altar's wreath of smoke 
Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; 

The fires are dead, the ring is broke, 
Where stood the many stand the few." 

My thoughts had wandered far away, 
Borne off on Memory's outspread wdng, 

To where in deepening twilight lay 

The wrecks of friendship's broken ring. 

Ah me ! of all our goodly train 

How few will find our banquet hall ! 

Yet why with coward lips complain 

That this must lean, and that must fall ? 

Cold is the Druid's altar-stone, 

Its vanished flame no more returns; 

But ours no chilling damp has known, — 
Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns. 

So let our broken circle stand 

A wreck, a remnant, yet the same, 

While one last, loving, faithful hand 
Still lives to feed its altar-flame! 



THE ANGEL-THIEF 

1888 

Time is a thief who leaves his tools behind 
him ; 
He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn ; 



43 



POEMS OF THE CLASS OF 



'29 



We track his footsteps, but we never find 
him: 
Strong locks are broken, massive bolts 
are drawn, 

And all around are left the bars and borers, 
The splitting wedges and the prying 
keys, 
Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-ex- 
plorers 
To crack, wrench open, rifle as they 
please. 

Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy 
lends us ! 
When gathering rust has clenched our 
shackles fast, 
Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us 
To break the cramping fetters of our 
past. 

Mourn as we may for treasures he has 
taken, 
Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft, 
More precious are those implements for- 
saken, 
Found in the wreck his ruthless hands 
have left. 

Some lever that a casket's hinge has 

broken 

s off 

free ; 

Each year some Open Sesame is spoken, 
And every decade drops its master-key. 

So as from year to year we count our treas- 
ure, 
Our loss seems less, and larger look our 
gains ; 
Time's wrongs repaid in more than even 
measure, — 
We lose our jewels, but we break our 
chains. 



AFTER THE CURFEW 



[The only remaining meeting of the class at 
Parker's was in 1890, three present. There 
was no poem.] 

The Play is over. While the light 
Yet lingers in the darkening hall, 



I come to say a last Good-night 
Before the final Exeunt all. 

We gathered once, a joyous throng: 
The jovial toasts went gayly round; 

With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song, 
We made the floors and walls resound. 

We come with feeble steps and slow, 

A little band of four or five, 
Left from the wrecks of long ago, 

Still pleased to find ourselves alive. 

Alive ! How living, too, are they 
Whose memories it is ours to share! 

Spread the long table's full array, — 
There sits a ghost in every chair! 

One breathing form no more, alas ! 

Amid our slender group we see ; 
With him we still remained " The Class," — 

Without his presence what are we ? 

The hand we ever loved to clasp, — 

That tireless hand which knew no rest, — 

Loosed from affection's clinging grasp, 
Lies nerveless on the peaceful breast. 

The beaming eye, the cheering voice, 
That lent to life a generous glow, 

Whose every meaning said " Rejoice," 
We see, we hear, no more below. 

The air seems darkened by his loss, 

Earth's shadowed features look less fair, 

And heavier weighs the daily cross 
His willing shoulders helped us bear. 



Why mourn that we, the favored few 
Whom grasping Time so long has spared 

Life's sweet illusions to pursue, 

The common lot of age have shared? 

In every pulse of Friendship's heart 
There breeds unfelt a throb of pain, — 

One hour must rend its links apart, 

Though years on years have forged the 
chain. 



So ends " The Boys," — a lifelong play. 

We too must hear the Prompter's call 
To fairer scenes and brighter day: 

Farewell ! I let the curtain fall. 





POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST- 
TABLE 

1857-1858 



[The collection under this heading* is not 
complete, since a few of the poems had been 
placed by the author in other divisions. Inas- 
much as the poems when first printed were in 



many cases introduced by a prose passage, these 
introductions are here reproduced, without the 
editorial brackets. The same method has been 
followed with the two succeeding groups.] 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 

We need not trouble ourselves about the 
distinction between this [the Pearly Nautilus] 
and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the 
ancients. The name applied to both shows 
that each has long been compared to a ship, as 
you may see mpre fully in Webster's Diction- 
ary or the Encyclopedia, to which he refers. 
If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater 
Treatise you will find a figure of one of these 
shells and a section of it. The last will show 
you the series of enlarging compartments suc- 
cessively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits 
the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. 
[This poem seemed to share with Dorothy Q. 
Dr. Holmes's interest, if one may judge by the 
frequency 'with which he chose it for reading 
or for autograph albums. He says on receipt 
of an album from the Princess of Wales, " I 
copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine 
called The Chambered Nautilus, as I have often' 
done for plain republican albums."] 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets 
feign, 
Sails the unshadowed inaii^ — 
The venturous bark that flings > 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled 

wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their 
streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; 
Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 
And every chambered cell, 



I Where its dim dreaming life was wont to 

dwell, 
I As the frail tenant shaped his growing 
shell, P 8 8 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt un- 
sealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil; 
Still, as the spiral grew, 
I He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
i Stole with soft step its shining archway 
through, 
Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last - found home, and 
knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought 
by thee, 
Child of the wandering sea, 
Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed 
horn ! 
While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear 
& voice that sings : — 

Build thee more 
soul, 
As the swift seasons roll ! 
Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more 
vast, 
149 



stately 



mansions. 



O my 



l 5° 



FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's un- 
resting sea ! 

^- 

SUN AND SHADOW 

[The isle where this poem was written was 
Naushon, already celebrated in the poems To 
Governor Swain and The Island Hunting-Song.] 
How can a man help writing poetry in such a 
place ? When the sun is in the west, vessels 
sailing in an easterly direction look bright or 
dark to one who observes them from the north 
or south, according to the tack they are sailing 
upon. Watching them from one of the windows 
of the great mansion, I saw these perpetual 
changes, and moralized thus : — 

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of 
green, 
To the billows of foam-erested blue, 
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is 
seen, 
Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue: 
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the 
spray 
As the chaff in the stroke of the flail ; 
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her 
way, 
The sun gleaming bright on her sail. 

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to 
shun, — 
Of breakers that whiten and roar; 
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun 

They see him who gaze from the shore ! 
He looks to the beacon that looms from the 
reef, 
To the rock that is under his lee, 
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind- 
wafted leaf, 
O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. 

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves 

Where life and its ventures are laid, 
The dreamers who gaze while we battle 
the waves 
May see us in sunshine or shade; 
Yet true to our course, though the shadows 
"grow dark, 
We '11 trim our broad sail as before, 
And stand by the rudder that governs the 
bark, 
Nor ask how we look from the shore ! 



MUSA 

The throbbing flushes of the poetical inter- 
mittent have been coming over me from time 
to time of late. Did you ever see that elec- 
trical experiment which consists in passing a 
flash through letters of goldleaf in a darkened 
room, whereupon some name or legend springs 
out of the darkness in characters of fire ? 
There are songs all written out in my soul, 
which I could read, if the flash might pass 
through them, — but the fire must come down 
from heaven. Ah ! but what if the stormy 
nimbus of youthful passion has blown by, and. 
one asks for lightning from the ragged cirrus 
of dissolving aspirations, or the silvered cumu- 
lus of sluggish satiety ? I will call on her 
whom the dead poets believed in, whom living 
ones no longer worship, — the immortal maid, 
who, name her what you will, — Goddess, 
Muse, Spirit of Beauty, — sits by the pillow 
of every youthful poet and bends over his pale 
forehead until her tresses lie upon his cheek 
and rain then* gold into his dream. 

O my lost beauty ! — hast thou folded 
quite 
Thy wings of morning light 
Beyond those iron gates 
Where Life crowds hurrying to the hag- 
gard Fates, 
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits 

To chill our fiery dreams, 
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his 
icy streams ? 

Leave me not fading in these weeds of 
care, 
Whose flowers are silvered hair ! 
Have I not loved thee long, 
Though my young lips have often done 

thee wrong, 
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with care- 
less song ? 
Ah, wilt thou yet return, 
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine 
altar burn ? 

Come to me ! — I will flood thy silent 
shrine 
With my soul's sacred wine, 
And heap thy marble floors 
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant 

stores, 
In leafy islands walled with madrepores 



A PARTING HEALTH 



And lapped in Orient seas, 
When all their feathery palms toss, plume- 
like, in the breeze. 

Come to me ! — thou shalt feed on honeyed 
words, 
Sweeter than song of birds; — 
Xo wailing bulbul's throat, 
Xo melting dulcimer's melodious note 
When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs 
float, 
Thy ravished seuse might soothe 
"With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so vel- 
vet smooth. 

Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a 
queen, 
Sought in those bowers of green 
Where loop the clustered vines 
And the close-clinging* dulcamara twines, — 
Pure pearls of Maydew where the moon- 
light shines, 
And Summer's fruited gems, 
And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's 
berried stems. 

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves, — 
Or stretched by grass-grown graves, 
Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, 
Carved with old names Life's time-worn 

roll disowns, 
Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled 
bones 
Still slumbering where they lay 
While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare 
the wolf away. 

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing ! 
Still let me dream and sing, — 
Dream of that winding shore 
Where scarlet cardinals bloom — for me 

no more, — 
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid 
floor, 
And clustering nenuphars 
Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden- 
chaliced stars ! 

Come while their balms the linden-blos- 
soms shed ! — 
Come while the rose is red, — 
While blue-eyed Summer smiles 
On the green ripples round yon sunken 
piles 



Washed by the moon-wave warm from In- 
dian isles, 
And on the sultry air 
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy 



men in prayer 



Oh for thy burning lips to fire my brain 
With thrills of wild, sweet pain ! — 
On life's autumnal blast, 
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion- 
flowers are cast, — 
Once loving thee, we love thee to the 
last ! — 
Behold thy new-decked shrine, 
And hear once more the voice that breathed 
" Forever thine ! " 



A PARTING HEALTH 

TO J. L. MOTLEY 

[Upon his return to England after the publi- 
cation of the History of the Butch Bejmblic in 
1857.] 

Yes, we knew we must lose him, — though 

friendship may claim 
To blend her green leaves with the laurels 

of fame ; 
Though fondly, at parting, we call him our 

own, 
'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has 

blown. 

As the rider that rests with the spur on his 
heel, 

As the guardsman that sleeps in his corse- 
let of steel, 

As the archer that stands with his shaft on 
the string, 

He stoops from his toil to the garland we 
bring. 

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his 
loom, 

Till their warriors shall breathe and their 
beauties shall bloom, 

While the tapestry lengthens the life-glow- 
ing dyes 

That caught from our sunsets the stain of 
their skies ! 

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of 
time, 



152 FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and 
crime, 

There are triumphs untold, there are mar- 
tyrs unsung, 

There are heroes yet silent to speak with 
his tongue ! 

Let us hear the proud story which time has 

bequeathed 
From lips that are warm with the freedom 

they breathed ! 
Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us 

their doom, 
Though he sweep the black past like Van 

Tromp with his broom ! 



The dream flashes by, for the west-winds 

awake 
On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and 

lake, 
To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled 

shrine, 
With incense they stole from the rose and 

the pine. 

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that 
gushed 

When the dead summer's jewels were tram- 
pled and crushed: 

The tkue Knight of Learning, — the 
world holds him dear, — 

Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed 
his career ! 



WHAT WE ALL THINK 

I think few persons have a greater disgust 
for plagiarism than myself. If I had even sus- 
pected that the idea in question was borrowed, 
I should have disclaimed originality, or men- 
tioned the coincidence, as I once did in a case 
where I had happened to hit on an idea of 
Swift's. — But what shall I do with these verses 
I was going to read you ? I am afraid that 
half mankind would accuse me of stealing their 
thoughts, if I printed them. I am convinced 
that several of you, especially if you are getting 
a little on in life, will recognize some of these 
sentiments as having passed through your con- 
sciousness at some time. I can't help it, — it 
is too late now. The verses are written, and 
you must have them. 

That age was older once than now, 
In spite of locks untimely shed, 



Or silvered on the youthful brow; 

That babes make love and children wed. 

That sunshine had a heavenly glow, 

Which faded with those " good old days " 

When winters came with deeper snow, 
And autumns with a softer haze. 

That — mother, sister, wife, or child — 
The " best of women " each has known. 

Were school-boys ever half so wild ? 
How young the grandpapas have grown ! 

That but for this our souls were free, 
And but for that our lives were blest; 

That in some season yet to be 

Our cares will leave us time to rest. 

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, — 
Some common ailment of the race, — 

Though doctors think the matter plain, — 
That ours is " a peculiar case." 

That when like babes with fingers burned 
We count one bitter maxim more, 

Our lesson all the world has learned, 
And men are wiser than before. 

That when we sob o'er fancied woes, 
The angels hovering overhead 

Count every pitying drop that flows, 
And love us for the tears we shed. 

That when we stand with tearless eye 
And turn the beggar from our door 

They still approve us when we sigh, 
" Ah, had I but one thousand more ! " 

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink 
O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, 

Their tablets bold with what we think, 
Their echoes dumb to what we know; 

That one unquestioned text we read, 
All doubt beyond, all fear above, 

Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed 
Can burn or blot it: God is Love ! 



SPRING HAS COME 

INTRA MUROS 

The sunbeams, lost for half a year, 

Slant through my pane their morning 
rays; 



PROLOGUE 



S3 



For dry northwesters cold and clear, 
The east blows in its thin blue haze. 

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, 
Then close against the sheltering wall 

The tulip's horn of dusky green, 
The peony's dark unfolding ball. 

The golden-chaliced crocus burns; 

The long narcissus-blades appear; 
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns 

To light her blue-flamed chandelier. 

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung 
By the wild winds of gusty March, 

With sallow leaflets lightly strung, 
Are swaying by the tufted larch. 

The elms have robed their slender spray 
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; 

Wide o'er the clasping arch of day 
Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. 

See the proud tulip*s flaunting cup, 
That flames in glory for an hour, — 

Behold it withering, — then look up, — 
How meek the forest monarch's flower ! 

When wake the violets, Winter dies; 

When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is 
near ; 
When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, 

" Bud, little roses ! Spring is here ! " 

The windows blush with fresh bouquets, 
Cut with their Maydew on the lips; 

The radish all its bloom displays, 
Pink as Aurora's finger-tips. 

Xor less the flood of light that showers 
On beauty's changed corolla-shades, — 

The walks are gay as bridal bowers 
With rows of many-petalled maids. 

The scarlet shell-fish click and clash 
In the blue barrow where they slide ; 

The horseman, proud of streak and splash, 
Creeps homeward from his morning ride. 

Here comes the dealer's awkward string, 
With neck in rope and tail in knot. — 

Bough colts, with careless country-swing, 
In lazy walk or slouching trot. 



Wild filly from the mountain-side, 

Doomed to the close and chafing thills, 

Lend me thy long, untiring stride 
To seek with thee thy western hills ! 

I hear the whispering voice of Spring, 
The thrush's trill, the robin's cry, 

Like some poor bird with prisoned wing- 
That sits and sings, but longs to fly. 

Oh for one spot of living green, — 

One little spot where leaves can grow, - 

To love unblamed, to walk unseen, 
To dream above, to sleep below ! 



PROLOGUE 

Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked 
to write. I did not see the play, though. I 
knew there was a young lady in it, and that 
somebody was in love with her, and she was in 
love with him, and somebody (an old tutor, I 
believe) wanted to interfere, and, very natur- 
ally, the young lady was too sharp for him. 
The play of course ends charmingly ; there is 
a general reconciliation, and all concerned form 
a line and take each other's hands, as people 
always do after they have made up their quar- 
rels, — and then the curtain falls, — if it does 
not stick, as it commonly does at private theat- 
rical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed 
to pull it down, which he does, blushing vio- 
lently. 

Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going 
to change my caesuras and cadences for any- 
body ; so if you do not like the heroic, or iam- 
bic trimeter brachycatalectic, you had better 
not wait to hear it. 

A prologue ? Well, of course the ladies 

know, — 
I have my doubts. No matter, — here we 

go ! 
What is a Prologue ? Let our Tutor 

teach: 
Pro means beforehand; logos stands for 

speech. 
'T is like the harper's prelude on the 

strings, 
The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; 
Prologues in metre are to other pros 
As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. 
" The world 's a stage," — as Shakespeare 

said, one day; 
The stage a world — was what he meant 

to say. 



154 FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



The outside world 's a blunder, that is 

clear; 
The real world that Nature meant is here. 
Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; 
Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa ; 
Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are 

paid, 
The cheats are taken in the traps the) 7 laid ; 
One after one the troubles all are past 
Till the fifth act comes right side up at 

last, 
When the young couple, old folks, rogues, 

and all, 
Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. 
Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, 
And black-browed ruffians always come to 

grief. 
When the lorn damsel, with a frantic 

screech, 
And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, 
Cries, " Help, kyind Heaven ! " and drops 

upon her knees 
On the green — baize, — beneath the (can- 
vas) trees, — 
See to her side avenging Valor fly: — 
" Ha ! Villain ! Draw ! Now, Terraitorr, 

yield or die ! " 
When the poor hero flounders in despair, 
Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire, 
Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal 

joy, 
Sobs on his neck, " My boy ! My boy ! ! 

MY BOY ! ! ! " 

Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world 

to-night, 
Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. 
Ladies, attend ! While woeful cares and 

doubt 
Wrong the soft passion in the world with- 
out, 
Though fortune scowl, though prudence 

interfere, 
One thing is certain: Love will triumph 

here ! 
Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule, — 
The world's great masters, when you're 

out of school, — 
Learn the brief moral of our evening's play : 
Man has his will, — but woman has her 

way ! 
While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and 

fire, 
Woman's swift instinct threads the electric 



The magic bracelet stretched beneath the 

waves 
Beats the black giant with his score of 

slaves. 
All earthly powers confess your sovereign 

art 
But that one rebel, — woman's wilful heart. 
All foes you master, but a woman's wit 
Lets daylight through you ere you know 

you 're hit. 
So, just to picture what her art can do, 
Hear an old story, made as good as new. 

Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, 
Alike was famous Jor his arm and blade. 
One day a prisoner Justice had to kill 
Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. 
Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and 

shaggy-browed, 
Rudolph the headsman rose above the 

crowd. 
His falchion lighted with a sudden gleam, 
As the pike's armor flashes in the stream. 
He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to 

The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. 

" Why strikest not ? Perform thy mur- 
derous act," 

The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly 
cracked.) 

" Friend, I have struck," the artist straight 
replied; 

" Wait but one moment, and yourself de- 
cide." 

He held his snuff-box, — " Now then, if 
you please ! " 

The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing 
sneeze, 

Off his head tumbled, — bowled along the 
floor, — 

Bounced down the steps ; — the prisoner 
said no more ! 

Woman ! thy falchion is a glittering eye; 

If death lurk in it, oh how sweet to die ! 

Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the 
head ; 

We die with love, and never dream we 're 
dead ! 



LATTER-DAY WARNINGS 

I should have felt more nervous about the 
late comet, if I had thought the world was 
ripe. But it is very green yet, if I am not 
mistaken; and besides, there is a great deal 



A GOOD TIME GOING! 



155 



of coal to use up, wliicli I cannot bring- myself 
to think was made for nothing'. If certain 
things, which seem to me essential to a millen- 
nium, had come to pass, I should have been 
frightened ; but they have n't. 

When legislators keep the law, 

"When banks dispense with bolts and 
locks, 
When berries — whortle, rasp, and straw — 
Grow bigger downwards through the 
box, — 

When he that selleth house or laud 
Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, — 

Wheu haberdashers choose the stand 

Whose window hath the broadest light, — 

When preachers tell us all they think, 
And party leaders' all they mean, — 

When what we pay for, that we drink, 
From real grape and coffee-bean, — 

"When lawyers take what they would give, 
And doctors give what they would take, — 

When city fathers eat to live, 

Save wheu they fast for conscience' 
sake, — 

Wb,en one that hath a horse on sale 
Shall bring his merit to the proof, 

Without a lie for every nail 

That holds the iron on the hoof, — 

When in the usual place for rips 

Our gloves are stitched with special care, 

And guarded well the whalebone tips 
Where first umbrellas need repair, — 

Wheu Cuba's weeds have quite forgot 
The power of suction to resist, 

And claret-bottles harbor not 

Such dimples as would hold your fist, — 

When publishers no longer steal, 

And pay for what they stole before, — 

When the first locomotive's wheel 

Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's 
bore ; — 

Till then let Gumming blaze away, 
And Miller's saints blow up the globe ; 

But when you see that blessed day, 
Then order vour ascension robe ! 



ALBUM VERSES 

When Eve had led her lord away, 
And Cain had killed his brother, 

The stars and flowers, the poets say, 
Agreed with one another 

To cheat the cunning tempter's art, 

And teach the race its duty, 
By keeping on its wicked heart 

Their eyes of light and beauty. 

A million sleepless lids, they say, 

Will be at least a warning; 
And so the flowers would watch by day, 

The stars from eve to morning. 

On hill and prairie, field and lawn, 

Their dewy eyes upturning, 
The flowers still watch from reddening 
dawn 

Till western skies are burning. 

Alas ! each hour of daylight tells 

A tale of shame so crushing, 
That some turn white as sea-bleached 
shells, 

And some are always blushing. 

But when the patient stars look down 

On all their light discovers, 
The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown, 

The lips of lying lovers, 

They try to shut their saddening eyes, 

And in the vain endeavor 
We see them twinkling in the skies, 

And so thev wink forever. 



A GOOD TIME GOING ! 
[A farewell poem to Charles Mackay.] 

Brave singer of the coming time, 

Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, 
Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, 

The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, 
Good by ! Good by ! — Our hearts and 
hands, 

Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, 
Cry, God be with him, till he stands 

His feet among the English daisies ! 



156 FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



'T is here we part; — for other eyes 

The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, 
The dripping arms that plunge and rise, 

The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, 
The kerchiefs waving from the pier, 

The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, 
The deep blue desert, lone and drear, 

With heaven above and home before 
him ! 

His home ! — the Western giant smiles, 

And twirls the spotty globe to find it; — 
This little speck the British Isles ? 

'T is but a freckle, — never mind it ! 
He laughs, and all his prairies roll, 

Each gurgling cataract roars and chuck- 
les, 
And ridges stretched from pole to pole 

Heave till they crack their iron knuckles ! 

But Memory blushes at the sneer, 

And Honor turns with frown defiant, 
And Freedom, leaning on her spear, 

Laughs louder than the laughing giant : 
" An islet is a world," she said, 

" When glory with its dust has blended, 
And Britain keeps her noble dead 

Till earth and seas and skies are rended ! " 

Beneath each swinging forest-bough 

Some arm as stout in death reposes, — 
From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed 
brow 

Her valor's life-blood runs in roses; 
Nay, let our brothers of the West 

Write smiling in their florid pages, 
One half her soil has walked the rest 

In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages ! 

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, 

From sea -weed fringe to mountain 
heather, 
The British oak with rooted grasp 

Her slender handful holds together; — 
With cliffs of white and bowers of green, 

And Ocean narrowing to caress her, 
And hills and threaded streams between, — 

Our little mother isle, God bless her ! 

In earth's broad temple where we stand, 
Fanned by the eastern gales that brought 
us, 
We hold the missal in our hand, 

Bright with the lines our Mother taught 
us. 



Where'er its blazoned page betrays 
The glistening links of gilded fetters, 

Behold, the half-turned leaf displays 
Her rubric stained in crimson letters ! 

Enough ! To speed a parting friend 

'Tis vain alike to speak and listen; — 
Yet stay, — these feeble accents blend 

With rays of light from eyes that glis- 
ten. 
Good by ! once more, — and kindly tell 

In words of peace the young world's 
story,— 
And say, besides, we love too well 

Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory ! 



THE LAST BLOSSOM 

Though young no more, we still would 
dream 

Of beauty's dear deluding wiles ; 
The leagues of life to graybeards seem 

Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. 

Who knows a woman's wild caprice ? 

It played with Goethe's silvered hair, 
And many a Holy Father's " niece " 

Has softly smoothed the papal chair. 

When sixty bids us sigh in vain 
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, 

We think upon those ladies twain 

Who loved so well the tough old Dean. 

We see the Patriarch's wintry face, 
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, 

And dream that Youth and Age embrace, 
As April violets fill with snow. 

Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile 
His lotus-loving Memphian lies, — 

The musky daughter of the Nile, 
With plaited hair and almond eyes. 

Might we but share one wild caress 
Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, 

And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress 
The long cold kiss that waits us all ! 

My bosom heaves, remembering yet 
The morning of that blissful day, 

When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, 
And gave my raptured soul away. 



CONTENTMENT 



iS7 



Flung from her eyes of purest blue, 
A lasso, with its leaping chain, 

Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew 

O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. 

Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, 
Sweet vision, waited for so long ! 

Dove that would seek the poet's cage 
Lured by the magic breath of song ! 

She blushes ! Ah, reluctant maid, 

Love's clrapeau rouge the truth has told ! 

O'er girlhood's yielding barricade 

Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold ! 

Come to my arms ! — love heeds not years; 

No frost the bud of passion knows. 
Ha ! what is this my frenzy hears ? 

A voice behind me uttered, — Rose ! 

Sweet was her smile, — but not for me; 

Alas ! when woman looks too kind, 
Just turn your foolish head and see, — 

Some youth is walking close behind ! 



CONTENTMENT 

" Man wants but little here below " 

Should you like to hear what moderate wishes 
life brings one to at last ? I used to be very 
ambitious, — wasteful, extravagant, and lux- 
urious in all my fancies. Read too much in 
the Arabian Nights. Must have the lamp, — 
could n't do without the ring. Exercise every 
morning on the brazen horse. Plump down 
into castles as full of little milk-white prin- 
cesses as a nest is of young sparrows. All 
love me dearly at once. — Charming idea of 
life, but too high-colored for the reality. I 
have outgrown all this ; my tastes have be- 
come exceedingly primitive, — almost, perhaps, 
ascetic. We carry happiness into our condi- 
tion, but must not hope to find it there. I 
think you will be willing to hear some lines 
which embody the subdued and limited desires 
of my maturity. 

Little I ask; my wants are few; 

I only wish a hut of stone, 
(A very plain brown stone will do,) 

That I may call my own; — 
And close at hand is such a one, 
In yonder street that fronts the sun. 

Plain food is quite enough for me; 
Three courses are as good as ten ; — 



If Nature can subsist on three, 

Thank Heaven for three. Amen ! 
I always thought cold victual nice; — 
My choice would be vanilla-ice. 

I care not much for gold or land ; — 
Give me a mortgage here and there, — 

Some good bank-stock, some note of 
hand, 
Or trifling railroad share, — 

I only ask that Fortune send 

A little more than I shall spend. 

Honors are silly toys, I know, 
And titles are but empty names; 

I would, perhaps, be Plenipo, — 
But only near St. James ; 

I 'm very sure I should not care 

To fill our Gubernator's chair. 

Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin 

To care for such unfruitful things; — 

One good-sized diamond in a pin, — 
Some, not so large, in rings, — 

A ruby, and a pearl, or so, 

Will do for me; — I laugh at show. 

My dame should dress in cheap attire; 

(Good, heavy silks are never dear;) — 
I own perhaps I might desire 

Some shawls of true Cashmere, — 
Some marrowy crapes of China silk, 
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. 

I would not have the horse I drive 
So fast that folks must stop and stare; 

An easy gait — two forty-five — 
Suits me ; I do not care ; — 

Perhaps, for just a single spurt, 

Some seconds less would do no hurt. 

Of pictures, I should like to own 

Titians and Raphaels three or four, — 

I love so much their style and tone, 
One Turner, and no more, 

(A landscape, — foreground golden dirt, — 

The sunshine painted with a squirt.) 

Of books but few, — some fifty score 
For daily use, and bound for wear; 

The rest upon an upper floor; — 
Some little luxury there 

Of red morocco's gilded gleam 

And vellum rich as country cream. 



158 FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



Busts, cameos, gems, — such things as 
these, 

Which others often show for pride, 
I value for their power to please, 

And selfish churls deride; — 
One Stradivarius, I confess, 
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. 

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, 
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ; — 

Shall not carved tables serve my turn, 
But all must be of buhl ? 

Give grasping pomp its double share, — 

I ask but one recumbent chair. 

Thus humble let me live and die, 
Nor long for Midas' golden touch; 

If Heaven more generous gifts deny, 
I shall not miss them much, — 

Too grateful for the blessing lent 

Of simple tastes and mind content ! 



ESTIVATION 

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE 
LATIN TUTOR 

Your talking Latin — said I — reminds me 
of an odd trick of one of my old tutors. He 
read so much of that language, that his Eng- 
lish half turned into it. He got caught in 
town, one hot summer, in pretty close quarters, 
and wrote, or began to write, a series of city 
pastorals. Eclogues he called them, and meant 
to have published them by subscription. I re- 
member some of his verses, if you want to hear 
them. — You, Sir (addressing myself to the 
divinity-student), and all such as have been 
through college, or what is the same thing, 
received an honorary degree, will understand 
them without a dictionary. The old man had 
a great deal to say about " aestivation," as he 
called it, in opposition, as one might say, to 
hibernation. Intramural aestivation, or town- 
life in summer, he would say, is a peculiar 
form of suspended existence, or semi-asphyxia. 
One wakes up from it about the beginning of 
the last week in September. This is what I 
remember of his poem: — 

In candent ire the solar splendor flames; 
The foles, languescent, pend from arid 

rames ; 
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, 
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes. 



How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, 
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, 
Carp the suave berries from the crescent 

vine, 
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine ! 

To me, alas ! no verdurous visions come, 
Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum, — 
No concave vast repeats the tender hue 
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue ! 

Me wretched ! Let me curr to quercine 

shades ! 
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids ! 
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous 

clump, — 
Depart, — be off, — excede, — evade, — 



erump 



THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 

OR, THE WONDERFUL " ONE-HOSS SHAY " 
A LOGICAL STORY 

[The following note was prefaced to the 
poem when it appeared in an illustrated edi- 
tion.] 

" The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" is a per- 
fectly intelligible conception, whatever ma- 
terial difficulties it presents. It is conceivable 
that a being of an order superior to human- 
ity should so understand the conditions of 
matter that he could construct a machine 
which should go to pieces, if not into its con- 
stituent atoms, at a given moment of the 
future. The mind may take a certain pleasure 
in this picture of the impossible. The event 
follows as a logical consequence of the presup- 
posed condition of things. 

There is a practical lesson to be got out of 
the story. Observation shows us in what point 
any particular mechanism is most likely to 
give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak 
point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. 
When the wagon breaks down, three times out 
of four, I think, it is at this point that the 
accident occurs. The workman should see to 
it that this part should never give way ; then 
find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until 
he arrives logically at the perfect result at- 
tained by the deacon. 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss 

shay, 
That was built in such a logical way 
It ran a hundred years to a day, 




THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE 



i59 



And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 
I '11 tell you what happened without delay, 
Scaring the parson into fits, 
Frightening people out of their wits, — 
Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
Georgius Secundus was then alive, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
That was the year when Lisbon-town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
And Braddock's army was clone so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 

Xow in building of chaises, I tell you what, 
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — 
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking 

still, 
Find it somewhere you must and will, — 
Above or below, or within or without, — 
And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, 
That a chaise breaks down, but does n't 

wear out. 

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, 
"With an " I dew vum," or an " I tell yeou ") 
=^ He would build one shay to beat the taown 
'.N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun' ; 
It should be so built that it could rf break 

daown : 
" Fur," said the Deacon, " 't 5 s mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place urns' stan' the 

strain ; 
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, 

Is only jest 
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 

' - So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 
Where he could find the strongest oak, 
That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, — 
That was for spokes and floor and sills; 
He sent for lance wood to make the thills; 
The crossbars were ash, from the 

straightest trees, 
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like 

cheese, 
But lasts like iron for things like these; 
The hubs of logs from the " Settler's 

ellum," — 
Last of its timber, — they could n't sell 



ISfever an axe had seen their chips, 

And the wedges flew from between their 

lips, 
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; 
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 
Steel of the finest, bright and blue; 
Thoroughbrace bison-sldn, thick and wide; 
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 
Found in the pit when the tanner died. 
That was the way he " put her through." 
" There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she '11 

dew ! " 

Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 
She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 
Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 
Children and grandchildren — where were 

they? 
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! 

Eighteen hundred; — it came and found 
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and 

sound. 
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; — 
" Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; — 
Running as usual; much the same. 
Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
And then come fifty, and fifty-five. 

Little of all we value here 
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 
Without both feeling and looking queer. 
In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its 

youth, 
So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 
(This is a moral that runs at large; 
Take it. — You 're welcome. — No extra 

charge.) \ / 

First of November, — the Earthquake- 
clay, — 
There are traces of age in the one-hoss 

shay, 
A general flavor of mild decay, 
But nothing local, as one may say. 
There could n't be, — for the Deacon's art 
Had made it so like in every part 
That there was n't a chance for one to 

start. 
For the wheels were just as strong as the 
thills, 



<M b» 



160 FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whipple-tree neither less nor 

more, 
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet, as a luhole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it will be worn out ! 

' First of November, 'Fifty-five ! 
This morning the parson takes a drive. 
Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 
"Huddup!" said the parson. — Off went 

they. 
The parson was working his Sunday's 

text, — 
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
At what the — Moses — was coming next. 
All at once the horse stood still, 
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 
First a shiver, and then a thrill, 
Then something decidedly like a spill, — 
And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house 

clock, — 
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock ! 
What do you think the parson found, 
When he got up and stared around ? 
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 
As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 
You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, 
How it went to pieces all at once, — 
All at once, and nothing first, — 
Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

. End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
XLogic is logic. That 's all I saj| 

PRELUDE 

[In introducing Parson TurelVs Legacy, the 
Autocrat amused his readers with an account 
of his friend the Professor's experiments in 
chloroform. The Professor was about to read 
the poem, but upon delivering the Prelude, his 
MS. was taken from him by the Autocrat, who 
finished the reading.] 

I 'm the fellah that tole one day 
The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay. 
Wan' to hear another ? Say. 
— Funny, was n' it ? Made me laugh, — 
I 'm too modest, I am, by half, — 



Made me laugh 's though I sWd split, — 

Calm' a fellah like fellah's own wit ? 

— Fellahs keep sayin', — "Well, now that 's 

nice : 
Did it once, but cahn' do it twice." — 
Don' you b'lieve the' 'z no more fat; 
Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. 
Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake, — 
Han' us the props for another shake ; — 
Know I '11 try, 'n' guess I'll win; 
Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in ! 

PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 

OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR 
A MATHEMATICAL STORY 

Facts respecting an old arm-chair. 

At Cambridge. Is kept in the College 

there. 
Seems but little the worse for wear. 
That 's remarkable when I say 
It was old in President Holyoke's day. 
(One of his boys, perhaps you know, 
Died, at one hundred, years ago.) 
He took lodgings for rain or shine 
Under green bed-clothes in '69. 

Know old Cambridge ? Hope you do. — 
Born there ? Don't say so ! I was, too. 
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof, — 
Standing still, if joxx must have proof. — 
" Gambrel ? — Gambrel ? " — Let me beg 
You '11 look at a horse's hinder leg, — 
First great angle above the hoof, — 
That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) 
Nicest place that ever was seen, — 
Colleges red and Common green, 
Sidewalks brownish with trees between. 
Sweetest spot beneath the skies 
When the canker-worms don't rise, — 
When the dust, that sometimes flies 
Into your mouth and ears and eyes, 
In a quiet slumber lies, 
Not in the shape of unbaked pies 
Such as barefoot children prize. 

A kind of harbor it seems to be, 
Facing the flow of a boundless sea. 
Rows of gray old Tutors stand 
Ranged like rocks above the sand; 
Rolling beneath them, soft and green, 
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen, — 
One wave, two waves, three waves, four, — 
Sliding up the sparkling floor: 



PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY 



161 



Then it ebbs to flow no more, 
Wandering off from shore to shore 
"With its freight of golden ore ! 
Pleasant place for boys to play ; — 
Better keep your girls away; 
Hearts get rolled as pebbles do 
Which countless fingering waves pursue, 
And every classic beach is strown 
With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red 
stone, 

But this is neither here nor there; 
I 'm talking about an old arm-chair. 
You've heard, no doubt, of Parson Tu- 

RELL? 

Over at Medford he used to dwell; 
Married one of the Mathers' folk; 
Got with his wife a chair of oak, — 
Funny old chair with seat like wedge, 
Sharp behind and broad front edge, — 
One of the oddest of human things, 
Turned all over with knobs and rings, — 
But heavy, and wide, and deep, and 

grand, — 
Fit for the worthies of the land, — 
Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in, 
Or Cotton Mather to sit — and lie — in. 
Parson Turell bequeathed the same 
To a certain student, — Smith by name; 
These were the terms, as we are told: 
" Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and 

holde ; 
When he doth graduate, then to passe 
To y e oldest Youth in y e Senior Classe. 
On payment of " — (naming a certain 

sum) — 
u By him to whom y e Chaire shall come; 
He to y e oldest Senior next, 
And soe forever," — (thus runs the text,) — 
"But one Crown lesse than he gave to 

claime, 
That being his Debte for use of same." 

Smith transferred it to one of the Browns, 

And took his money, — five silver crowns. 

Brown delivered it up to Moore, 

Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. 

Moore made over the chair to Lee, 

Who gave him crowns of silver three. 

Lee conveyed it unto Drew, 

And now the payment, of course, was two. 

Drew gave up the chair to Dunn, — 

All he got, as you see, was one. 

Dunn released the chair to Hall, 

And got by the bargain no crown at all. 



And now it passed to a second Brown, 
Who took it and likewise claimed a crown. 
When Brown conveyed it unto Ware, 
Having had one crown, to make it fair, 
He paid him two crowns to take the chair; 
And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,) 
He paid one Potter, who took it, three. 
Four got Robinson; five got Dix; 
Johnson primus demanded six; 
And so the sum kept gathering still 
Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. 

When paper money became so cheap, 
Folks would n't count it, but said " a heap," 
A certain Richards, — the books de- 
clare, — 
(A. M. in '90 ? I 've looked with care 
Through the Triennial, — name not there,) — 
This person, Richards, was offered then 
Eightscore pounds, but would have ten ; 
Nine, I think, was the sum he took, — 
Not quite certain, — but see the book. 
By and by the wars were still, 
But nothing had altered the Parson's will. 
The old arm-chair was solid yet, 
But saddled with such a monstrous debt ! 
Things grew quite too bad to bear, 
Paying such sums to get rid of the chair ! 
But dead men's fingers' hold awful tight, 
And there was the will in black and white, 
Plain enough for a child to spell. 
What should be done no man could tell, 
For the chair was a kind of nightmare 

curse, 
And every season but made it worse. 

As a last resort, to clear the doubt, 

They got old Governor Hancock out. 

The Governor came with his Lighthorse 
Troop 

And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a- 
hoop ; 

Halberds glittered and colors flew, 

French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, 

The yellow fifes whistled between their 
teeth, 

And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed 
beneath ; 

So he rode with all his band, 

Till the President met him, cap in hand. 

The Governor " hefted " the crowns, and 
said, — 

"A will is a will, and the Parson's dead." 

The Governor hefted the crowns. Said 
he,— 



162 FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



" There is your p'nit. And here 's my fee. 
These are the terms you must fulfil, — 
On such couditions I break the will ! " 
The Governor mentioned what these should 

be. 
(Just wait a minute and then you '11 see.) 
The President prayed. Then all was still, 
And the Governor rose and broke the 

will ! 
" About those conditions ? " Well, now you 

go 
And do as I tell you, and then you '11 know. 
Once a year, on Commencement day, 
If you '11 only take the pains to stay, 
You '11 see the President in the Chair, 
Likewise the Governor sitting there. 
The President rises; both old and young 
May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, 
The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, 
Is this : Can I keep this old arm-chair ? 
And then his Excellency bows, 
As much as to say that he allows. 
The Vice-Gub. next is called by name; 
He bows like t' other, which means the same. 
And all the officers round 'em bow, 
As much as to say that they allow. 
And a lot of parchments about the chair 
Are handed to witnesses then and there, 
And then the lawyers hold it clear 
That the chair is safe for another year. 

God bless you, Gentlemen ! Learn to give 

Money to colleges while you live. 

Don't be silly and think you '11 try 

To bother the colleges, when you die, 

With codicil this, and codicil that, 

That Knowledge may starve while Law 

grows fat; 
For there never was pitcher that would n't 

spill, 
And there 's always a flaw in a donkey's 

will! 



ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING 

WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEE- 
TOTALER 

Here is a little poem I sent a short time 
since to a committee for a certain celebration. 



I understood that it was to be a festive and 
convivial occasion, and ordered myself accord- 
ingly. It seems the president of the day was 
what is called a "teetotaler." I received a 
note from him in the following words, contain- 
ing the copy subjoined, with the emendations 
annexed to it. 

" Dear Sir, — Your poem gives good satis- 
faction to the committee. The sentiments 
expressed with reference to liquor are not, how- 
ever, those generally entertained by this com- 
munity. I have therefore consulted the clergy- 
man of this place, who has made some slight 
changes, which he thinks will remove all ob- 
jections, and keep the valuable portions of the 
poem. Please to inform me of your charge 
for said poem. Our means are limited, etc., 
etc., etc. 

" Yours with respect." 

Here it is with the slight alterations. 

Come ! fill a fresh bumper, for why should 
we go 

logwood 

While the noctar still reddens our cups as 
they flow ? 

decoction 

Pour out the gich juicoo ' still bright with the 
sun, 

dye-stuff 

Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubioo 
shall run. 

half-ripened apples 

The 3» m?plo globod omotcro their life-dews 
have bled; 

taste sugar of lead. 

How sweet is the - breath of the fragrance 
thoy nhod ? 

rank poisons _ wines ! ! ! 

For summer's last rosoo ' lie hid in the - winoo 

stable-boys smoking 

That were garnered by maidens who 

long-nines. 

■ laughed thro ' tkc - vinoa . 

scowl howl scoff 

Then a - smilo , and a - glass -, ^iid a toast , and 

sneer, 

a ehoog , 

strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and # 

For all the good wino, and wo 'vq come cf -i^ 

beer ! 



In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 

Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all ! 

Long live the ga y-scr-va-nt-t-hc 
■ us all ! ■ 



POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST- 
TABLE 

1858-1859 



UNDER THE VIOLETS 

Her hands are cold; her face is white; 
No more her pulses come and go; 

Her eyes are shut to life and light; — 
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, 
And lay her where the violets blow. 

But not beneath a graven stone, 
To plead for tears with alien eyes; 

A slender cross of wood alone 
Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 

And gray old trees of hugest limb 

Shall wheel their circling shadows round 

To make the scorching sunlight dim 

That drinks the greenness from the 

ground, 
And drop their dead leaves on her mound. 

When o'er their boughs the squirrels run. 
And through their leaves the robins call, 

And, ripening in the autumn sun, 
The acorns and the chestnuts fall, 
Doubt not that she will heed them all. 

For her the morning choir shall sing 
Its matins from the branches high, 

And every minstrel-voice of Spring, 
That trills beneath the April sky, 
Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 

When, turning round their dial-track, 
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, 

Her little mourners, clad in black, 

The crickets, sliding through the grass, 
Shall pipe for her an evening mass. 

At last the rootlets of the trees 
Shall find the prison where she lies, 



163 



And bear the buried dust they seize 
In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
So may the soul that warmed it rise ! 

If any, born of kindlier blood, 

Should ask, What maiden lies below ? 

Say only this : A tender bud, 

That tried to blossom in the snow, 
Lies withered where the violets blow. 



HYMN OF TRUST 

O Love Divine, that stooped to share 
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, 

On Thee we cast each earth-born care, 
We smile at pain while Thou art near ! 

Though long the weary way we tread, 
And sorrow crown each lingering year, 

No path we shun, no darkness dread, 

Our hearts still whispering, Thou art 
near ! 

When drooping pleasure turns to grief, 
And trembling faith is changed to fear, 

The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf, 
Shall softly tell us, Thou art near ! 

On Thee we fling our burdening woe, 

O Love Divine, forever dear, 
Content to suffer while we know, 

Living and dying, Thou art near ! 



A SUN-DAY HYMN 

Lord of all being ! throned afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star 
Centre and soul of every sphere, 
Yet to each loving heart how near ! 



164 FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



Sun of our life, thy quickening ray- 
Sheds on our path the glow of day; 
Star of our hope, thy softened light 
Cheers the long watches of the night. 

Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn; 
Our noontide is thy gracious dawn; 
Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign; 
All, save the clouds of sin, are thine ! 

Lord of all life, below, above, 

Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, 

Before thy ever-blazing throne 

We ask no lustre of our own. 

Grant us thy truth to make us free, 
And kindling hearts that burn for thee, 
Till all thy living altars claim 
One holy light, one heavenly flame ! 



THE CROOKED FOOTPATH 

Ah, here it is ! the sliding rail 

That marks the old remembered spot, — 
The gap that struck our school-boy trail, — 

The crooked path across the lot. 

It left the road by school and church, 
A pencilled shadow, nothing more, 

That parted from the silver-birch 
And ended at the farm-house door. 

No line or compass traced its plan; 

With frequent bends to left or right, 
In aimless, wayward curves it ran, 

But always kept the door in sight. 

The gabled porch, with woodbine green, — 
The broken millstone at the sill, — 

Though many a rood might stretch between, 
The truant child could see them still. 

No rocks across the pathway lie, — 
No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, — 

And yet it winds, we know not why, 
And turns as if for tree or stone. 

Perhaps some lover trod the way 

With shaking knees and leaping heart, — 

And so it often runs astray 

With sinuous sweep or sudden start. 

Or one, perchance, with clouded brain 
From some unholy banquet reeled, — 



And since, our devious steps maintain 
His track across the trodden field. 

Nay, deem not thus, — no earthborn will 
Could ever trace a faultless line; 

Our truest steps are human still, — 
To walk unswerving were divine ! 

Truants from love, we dream of wrath; — 
Oh, rather let us trust the more ! 

Through all the wanderings of the path 
We still can see our Father's door ! 



IRIS, HER BOOK 

I pray thee by the soul of her that bore 

thee, 
By thine own sister's spirit I implore 

thee, 
Deal gently with the leaves that lie before 

thee ! 

For Iris had no mother to infold her, 
Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, 
Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature 
told her. 

She had not learned the mystery of awak- 
ing 

Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's 
aching, 

Giving the dumb heart voice, that else 
were breaking. 

Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pic- 
tured token ! 

Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade 
unspoken, 

Like daffodils that die with sheaths un- 
broken ? 

She knew not love, yet lived in maiden 
fancies, — 

Walked simply clad, a queen of high ro- 
mances, 

And talked strange tongues with angels in 
her trances. 

Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature 
wearing: 

Sometimes a flashing falcon in her dar- 
ing* 

Then a poor mateless dove that droops de- 
spairing. 



ROBINSON OF LEYDEN 



165 



Questioning all things: Why her Lord had 
sent her ? 

"What were these torturing gifts, and where- 
fore lent her ? 

Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. 

And then all tears and anguish: Queen of 
Heaven, 

Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows 
riven, 

Save me! Oh, save me! Shall I die for- 
given ? 

And then — Ah, God! But nay, it little 

matters: 
Look at the wasted seeds that autumn 

scatters, 
The myriad germs that Nature shapes and 

shatters ! 

If she had — Well! She longed, and knew 

not wherefore. 
Had the world nothing she might live to 

care for ? 
No second self to say her evening prayer 

for? 

She knew the marble shapes that set men 
dreaming, 

Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses 
streaming 

Showed not unlovely to her simple seem- 
ing. 

Vain ? Let it be so! Nature was her 

teacher. 
What if a lonely and unsistered creature 
Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing 

feature, 

Saying, unsaddened, — This shall soon be 

faded, 
And double-hued the sliming tresses 

braided, 
And all the sunlight of the morning shaded ? 

This her poor book is full of saddest fol- 
lies, 
Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies, 
With summer roses twined and wintry 
hollies. 

In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, 
Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear- 
dimmed glances 



May fall her little book of dreams and 
fancies. 

Sweet sister ! Iris, who shall never name 

thee, 
Trembling for fear her open heart may 

shame thee, 
Speaks from this vision-haunted page to 

claim thee. 

Spare her, I pray thee ! If the maid is 

sleeping, 
Peace with her ! she has had her hour of 

weeping. 
No more ! She leaves her memory in thy 

keeping. 



ROBINSON OF LEYDEN 

He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer 
His wandering flock had gone before, 

But he, the shepherd, might not share 
Their sorrows on the wintry shore. 

Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, 
Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, 

While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, 
The pastor spake, and thus he said : — 

" Men, brethren, sisters, children dear ! 

God calls you hence from over sea; 
Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer, 

Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. 

" Ye go to bear the saving word 

To tribes unnamed and shores untrod; 

Heed well the lessons ye have heard 
From those old teachers taught of God. 

" Yet think not unto them was lent 
All light for all the coming days, 

And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent 
In making straight the ancient ways; 

" The living fountain overflows 
For every flock, for every lamb, 

Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose 
With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." 

He spake; with lingering, long embrace, 
With tears of love and partings fond, 

They floated down the creeping Maas, 
Along the isle of Ysselmond. 



166 FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



They passed the frowning towers of Briel, 
The " Hook of Holland's " shelf of sand, 

And grated soon with lifting keel 
The sullen shores of Fatherland. 

No home for these ! — too well they knew 
The mitred king behind the throne ; — 

The sails were set, the pennons flew, 

And westward ho ! for worlds unknown. 

And these were they who gave us birth, 
The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, 

Who won for us this virgin earth, 
And freedom with the soil they gave. 

The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, — 
In alien earth the exiles lie, — 

Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, 
His words our noblest battle-cry ! 

Still cry them, and the world shall hear, 
Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea ! 

Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, 
Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee ! 



ST. ANTHONY THE REFORMER 

HIS TEMPTATION 

The Reformers have good heads, generally. 
Their faces are commonly serene enough, and 
they are lambs in private intercourse, even 
though their voices may be like 

" The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore," 

when heard from the platform. Their greatest 
spiritual danger is from the perpetual flattery 
of abuse to which they are exposed. These 
lines are meant to caution them. 

No fear lest praise should make us proud ! 

We know how cheaply that is won; 
The idle homage of the crowd 

Is proof of tasks as idly done. 

A surface-smile may pay the toil 

That follows still the conquering Right, 

With soft, white hands to dress the spoil 
That sun-browned valor clutched in fight. 

Sing the sweet song of other days, 

Serenely placid, safely true, 
And o'er the present's parching ways 

The verse distils like evening dew. 



But speak in words of living power, — 
They fall like drops of scalding rain 

That plashed before the burning shower 
Swept o'er the cities of the plain ! 

Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, — 
Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, 

And, smitten through their leprous mail, 
Strike right and left in hope to sting. 

If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, 
Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, 

Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, 

Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love, — 

Too kind for bitter words to grieve, 
Too firm for clamor to dismay, 

When Faith forbids thee to believe, 
And Meekness calls to disobey, — 

Ah, then beware of mortal pride ! 

The smiling pride that calmly scorns 
Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed 

In laboring on thy crown of thorns ! 



THE OPENING OF THE PIANO 

In the little southern parlor of the house 
you may have seen 

With the gambrel-roof, and the gable look- 
ing westward to the green, 

At the side toward the sunset, with the 
window on its right, 

Stood the London-made piano I am dream- 
ing of to-night ! 

Ah me S how I remember the evening when 

it came ! 
What a cry of eager voices, what a group 

of cheeks in flame, 
When the wondrous box was opened that 

had come from over seas, 
With its smell of mastic-varnish and its 

flash of ivory keys ! 

Then the children all grew fretful in the 

restlessness of joy, 
For the boy would push his sister, and the 

sister crowd the boy, 
Till the father asked for quiet in his grave 

paternal way, 
But the mother hushed the tumult with 

the words, " Now, Mary, play." 



DE SAUTY 



167 



For the dear soul knew that music was a 
very sovereign balm; 

She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen 
its brow grow calm, 

In the days of slender harpsichords with 
tapping tinkling quills, 

Or carolling to her spinet with its thin me- 
tallic thrills. 

So Mary, the household minstrel, who 

always loved to please, 
Sat down to the new " Clementi," and 

struck the glittering keys. 
Hushed were the children's voices, and 

every eye grew dim, 
As, floating from lip and finger, arose the 

" Vesper Hymn." 

Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and 
rosy-red, 

(Wedded since, and a widow, — something 
like ten years dead,) 

Hearing a gush of music such as none be- 
fore, 

Steals from her mother's chamber and 
peeps at the open door. 

Just as the " Jubilate " in threaded whis- 
per dies, 

" Open it! open it, lady!" the little 
maiden cries, 

(For she thought 't was a singing creature 
caged in a box she heard,) 

" Open it ! open it, lady ! and let me see 
the bird!" 



MIDSUMMER 

Here ! sweep these foolish leaves away, 
I will not crush my brains to-day ! 
Look ! are the southern curtains drawn ? 
Fetch me a fan, and so begone ! 

Xot that,' — the palm-tree's rustling leaf 
Brought from a parching coral-reef ! 
Its breath is heated; — I would swing 
The broad gray plumes, — the eagle' 
wing. 

I hate these roses' feverish blood ! — 
Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, 
A long-stemmed lily from the lake, 
Cold as a coiling water-snake. 



Rain me sweet odors 011 the air, 
And wheel me up my Indian chair, 
And spread some book not overwise 
Flat out before my sleepy eyes. 

Who knows it not — this dead recoil 
Of weary fibres stretched with toil, — 
The pulse that flutters faint and low 
When Summer's seething breezes blow ! 

O Nature ! bare thy loving breast, 
And give thy child one hour of rest, — 
One little hour to lie unseen 
Beneath thy scarf of leafy green ! 

So, curtained by a singing pine, 
Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, 
Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay 
In sweeter music dies away. 

DE SAUTY 

AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE 

The first messages received through the sub- 
marine cable were sent by an electrical expert, 
a mysterious personage who signed himself De 
Sauty. 

Professor Blue- Nose 

PROFESSOR 

Tell me, O Provincial ! speak, Ceruleo- 
Nasal ! 

Lives there one De Sauty extant now 
among you, 

Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thun- 
der, 
Holding talk with nations ? 

Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, 
Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night- 
cap, 
Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiv- 
ing feature 
Three times daily patent ? 

Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo- 
Nasal ? 

Or is he a mythus, — ancient word for 
" humbug," — 

Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet- 
nursed 
Romulus and Remus ? 



1 68 FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



"Was be born of woman, this alleged De 


From the lonely station passed the utter- 


Sauty ? 


ance, spreading 


Or a living product of galvanic action, 


Through the pines and hemlocks to the 


Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solu- 


groves of steeples, 


tion ? 


Till the land was filled with loud reverber- 


Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal ! 


ations 




Of « All right! De Sauty." 


BLUE-NOSE 






When the current slackened, drooped the 


Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing 


mystic stranger, — 


stranger, 


Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew 


Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and- 


weaker, — 


treacle-waster ! 


Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn 


Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear- 


odor 


flap toward me, 


Of disintegration. 


Thou shalt hear them answered. 






Drops of deliquescence glistened on his 


When the charge galvanic tingled through 


forehead, 


the cable, 


Whitened round his feet the dust of efflo- 


At the polar focus of the wire electric 


rescence, 


Suddenly appeared a white-faced man 


Till one Monday morning, when the flow 


among us: 


suspended, 


Called himself " De Sauty." 


There was no De Sauty. 


As the small opossum held in pouch mater- 


Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, 


nal 


C. 0. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. 


Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term 


Potassa, 


mammalia, 


Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, 


So the unknown stranger held the wire 


Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?) 


electric, 


Such as man is made of. 


Sucking in the current. 






Born of stream galvanic, with it he had 


When the current strengthened, bloomed 


perished ! 


the pale-faced stranger, — 


There is no De Sauty now there is no 


Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat 


current ! 


and rosy, — 


Give us a new cable, then again we '11 hear 


And from time to time, in sharp articulation, 


him 


Said, "All right ! De Sauty." 


Cry, « All right ! De Sauty." 



POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 

1871-1872 



HOMESICK IN HEAVEN 

Most people love this world more than they 
are willing- to confess, and it is hard to con- 
ceive ourselves weaned from it so as to feel no 
emotion at the thought of its most sacred rec- 
ollections, — even after a sojourn of years, as 
we should count the lapse of earthly time, — 
in the realm where, sooner or later, all tears 
shall he wiped away. I hope, therefore, the 
title of my lines wiil not frighten those who 
are little accustomed to think of men and 
women as heings in any state hut the present. 

THE DIVINE VOICE 

Go seek thine earth-born sisters, — thus 
the Voice 
That all obey, — the sad and silent 
three ; 
These only, while the hosts of Heaven re- 
joice, 
Srnile never; ask them what their sor- 
rows be; 

And when the secret of their griefs they 
tell, 
Look on them with thy mild, half-human 
eyes; 
Say what thou wast on earth; thou 
knowest well; 
So shall they cease from unavailing 



THE ANGEL 

Why thus, apart, — the swift- winged 
herald spake, — 
Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres 
While the trisagion's blending chords 
awake 
In shouts of joy from all the heavenly 
choirs ? 



THE FIRST SPIRIT 

Chide not thy sisters, — thus the answer 
came; — 
Children of earth, our half- weaned 
nature clings 
To earth's fond memories, and her 
whispered name 
Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened 
strings ; 

For there we loved, and where we love is 
home, 
Home that our feet may leave, but not 
our hearts, 
Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted 
dome: — 
The chain may lengthen, but it never 
parts ! 

Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling 

by, 

And then we softly whisper, — can it be ? 

And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try 

To hear the music of its murmuring sea; 

To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse 
of green, 
Or breathe some wild-wood fragrance, 
wafted through 
The opening gates of pearl, that fold be- 
tween 
The blinding splendors and the change- 
less blue. 

THE ANGEL 

Nay, sister, nay ! a single healing leaf 
Plucked from the bough of yon twelve- 
fruited tree 
Would soothe such anguish, — deeper 
stabbing grief 
Has pierced thy throbbing heart — 



169 



170 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



THE FIRST SPIRIT 



Ah, woe is me ! 
I from my clinging babe was rudely torn; 

His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed ; 
Can I forget him in my life new born ? 

Oh that my darling lay upon my breast ! 



THE ANGEL 



And thou ? — 



THE SECOND SPIRIT 

I was a fair and youthful bride, 

The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek, 

He whom I worshipped, ever at my side, — 

Him through the spirit realm in vain I 

seek. 

Sweet faces tarn their beaming eyes on 
mine; 
Ah ! not in these the wished-for look I 
read; 
Still for that one dear human smile I pine; 
Thou and none other ! — is the lover's 
creed. 

THE ANGEL 

And whence thy sadness in a world of bliss 
Where never parting comes, nor mourn- 
er's tear ? 
Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss 
Amid the seraphs of the heavenly 
sphere ? 

THE THIRD SPIRIT 

Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire; 
When the swift message set my spirit 
free, 
Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired 
sire; 
My friends were many, he had none save 
me. 

I left him, orphaned, in the starless night; 

Alas, for him no cheerful morning's 
dawn ! 
I wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white, 

Yet still I hear him moaning, She is gone ! 

THE ANGEL 

Ye know me not, sweet sisters ? — All in 
vain 



Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they 

wore; 
The flower once opened may not bud again, 
The fruit once fallen finds the stem no 

more. 

Child, lover, sire, — yea, all things loved 
below, — 
Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's 
fold,— 
Fade like the roseate flush, the golden 
glow, 
When the bright curtain of the day is 
rolled. 

/ was the babe that slumbered on thy breast, 
And, sister, mine the lips that called thee 
bride. 
Mine were the silvered locks thy hand ca- 
ressed, 
That faithful hand, my faltering foot- 
step's guide ! 

Each changing form, frail vesture of decay, 
The soul unclad forgets it once hath 
worn, 
Stained with the travel of the weary day, 
And shamed with rents from every way- 
side thorn. 

To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace, — 
To come with love's warm kisses back to 
thee, — 
To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's 
face, 
Not Heaven itself could grant; this may 
not be ! 

Then spread your folded wings, and leave 
to earth 
The dust once breathing ye have mourned 
so long, 
Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly 
birth, 
And sorrow's discords sweeten into song ! 



FANTASIA 

THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM 

Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, 
Blushing into life new-born ! 
Lend me violets for my hair, 
And thy russet robe to wear, 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS 



7i 



And tlij ring of rosiest line 
Set in drops of diamond dew ! 

Kiss my cheek, thon noontide ray, 
From my Love so far away ! 
Let thy splendor streaming down 
Turn its pallid lilies brown, 
Till its darkening shades reveal 
Where his passion pressed its seal ! 

Kiss my lips, thon Lord of light, 
Kiss my lips a soft good-night ! 
Westward sinks thy golden car; 
Leave me but the evening star, 
And my solace that shall be, 
Borrowing all its lio-ht from thee ! 



AUNT TABITHA 

THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM 

Whatever I do, and whatever I say, 
Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way ; 
When she was a girl (forty summers ago) 
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. 

Dear aunt ! If I only would take her ad- 
vice ! 

But I like my own way, and I find it so nice ! 

And besides, I forget half the things I am 
told; 

But they all will come back to me — when 
I am old. 

If a youth passes by, it may happen, no 

doubt, 
He may chance to look in as I chance to 

look out; 
She would never endure an impertinent 

stare, — 
It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit 

there. 

A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I 

own, 
But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone; 
So I take a lad's arm, — just for safety, 

you know, — 
But Aunt Tabitha tells me they did n't do so. 

How wicked we are, and how good they 

were then ! 
They kept at arm's length those detestable 

men: 



What an era of virtue she lived in ! — But 

stay — 
Were the men all such rogues in Aunt 

Tabitha's day ? 

If the men were so wicked, I '11 ask my papa 
How he dared to propose to my darling 

mamma; 
Was he like the rest of them ? Goodness ! 

Who knows ? 
And what shall i" say, if a wretch should 

propose ? 

I am thinking if Aunt knew so little of 

sin, 
What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must 

have been ! 
And her grand-aunt — it scares me — how 

shockingly sad 
That we girls of to-day are so frightfully 

bad! 

A martyr will save us, and nothing else can; 
Let me perish — to rescue some wretched 

young man ! 
Though when to the altar a victim I go, 
Aunt Tabitha '11 tell me she never did so ! 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR- 
DRIFTS 

FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM 



AMBITION 

Another clouded night; the stars are hid, 
The orb that waits my search is hid with 

them. 
Patience ! Why grudge an hour, a month, 

a year, 
To plant my ladder and to gain the round 
That leads my footsteps to the heaven of 

fame, 
Where waits the wreath my sleepless mid- 
nights won ? 
Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear 
That withers when some stronger conquer- 
or's heel 
Treads down their shrivelling trophies in 

the dust; 
But the fair garland whose undying green 
Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or 
men ! 



172 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



With quickened heart-beats I shall hear 

the tongues 
That speak my praise; but better far the 

sense 
That in the unshaped ages, buried deep 
In the dark mines of unaccomplished time 
Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die 
And coined in golden days, — in those dim 

years 
I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, 
My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, 
Unfading till the stars themselves shall 

fade. 
Then, as they call the roll of shining 

worlds, 
Sages of race unborn in accents new 
Shall count me with the Olympian ones of 

old, 
Whose glories kindle through the midnight 

sky: 
Here glows the God of Battles; this recalls 
The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere 
The Sire of Him who gave his ancient 

name 
To the dim planet with the wondrous rings ; 
Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver 

lamp, 
And there the moon-girt orb of mighty 

Jove; 
But this, unseen through all earth's seons 

past, 
A youth who watched beneath the western 

star 
Sought in the darkness, found, and shewed 

to men; 
Linked with his name thenceforth and 

evermore ! 
So shall that name be syllabled anew 
In all the tongues of all the tribes of men: 
I that have been through immemorial years 
Dust in the dust of my forgotten time 
Shall live in accents shaped of blood -warm 

breath, 
Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born 
In shining stone, in undecaying bronze, 
And stand on high, and look serenely down 
On the new race that calls the earth its own. 

Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my 

soul, 
Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain 
Where worlds beyond the world their 

mingling rays 
Blend in soft white, — a cloud that, born 

of earth, 



Would cheat the soul that looks for light 

from heaven ? 
Must every coral-insect leave his sign 
On each poor grain he lent to build the 

reef, 
As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt 

clay. 
Or deem his patient service all in vain ? 
What if another sit beneath the shade 
Of the broad elm I planted by the way, — 
What if another heed the beacon light 
I set upon the rock that wrecked my 

keel, — 
Have I not done my task and served my 

kind? 
Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, un- 
known, 
And let Fame blow her trumpet through 

the world 
With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, 
Joined with some truth he stumbled blindly 

o'er, 
Or coupled with some single shining deed 
That in the great account of all his days 
Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet 
His pitying angel shows the clerk of 

Heaven. 
The noblest service comes from nameless 

hands, 
And the best servant does his work unseen. 
Who found the seeds of fire and made 

them shoot, 
Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of 

flame ? 
Who forged in roaring flames the ponder- 
ous stone, 
And shaped the moulded metal to his need ? 
Who gave the dragging car its rolling 

wheel, 
And tamed the steed that whirls its circling 

round ? 
All these have left their work and not their 

names, — 
Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs ? 
This is the heavenly light; the pearly stain 
Was but a wind-cloud drifting o'er the 

stars ! 

II 

REGRETS 

Brief glimpses of the bright celestial 
spheres, 

False lights, false shadows, vague, uncer- 
tain gleams, 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS 



173 



Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid 

flame, 
The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, 
The sinkiug of the downward-falling star, — 
All these are pictures of the changing 

moods 
Borne through the midnight stillness of my 

soul. 

Here am I, bound upon this pillared rock, 
Prey to the vulture of a vast desire 
That feeds upon my life. — I burst my bands 
And steal a moment's freedom from the 

beak, 
The clino-ino- talons and the shadowing 

plumes ; 
Then comes the false enchantress, with her 

song; 
" Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the 

dust 
Like the base herd that feeds and breeds 

and dies ! 
Lo, the fair garlands that I weave for 

thee, 
Unchanging as the belt Orion wears, 
Bright as the jewels of the seven-starred 

Crown, 
The spangled stream of Berenice's hair ! " 
And so she twines the fetters with the 

flowers 
Around my yielding limbs, and the fierce 

bird 
Stoops to his quarry, — then to feed his 

rage 
Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood 
And let the dew-drenched, poison-breeding 

night 
Steal all the freshness from my fading 

cheek, 
And leave its shadows round my caverned 

eyes. 
All for a line in some unheeded scroll; 
All for a stone that tells to gaping clowns, 
" Here lies a restless wretch beneath a 

clod 
Where squats the jealous nightmare men 

call Fame ! " 

I marvel not at him who scorns his kind 
And thinks not sadly of the time foretold 
When the old hulk we tread shall be a 

wreck, 
A slag, a cinder drifting through the sky 
Without its crew of fools ! We live too 

long:, 



And even so are not content to die, 

But load the mould that covers up our 

bones 
With stones that stand like beggars by the 

road 
And show death's grievous wound and ask 

for tears ; 
Write our great books to teach men who 

we are, 
Sing our fine songs that tell in artful 

phrase 
The secrets of our lives, and plead and 

pray 
For alms of memory with the after time, 
Those few swift seasons while the earth 

shall wear 
Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold 
And the moist life of all that breathes 

shall die; 
Or as the new-born seer, perchance more 

wise, 
Would have us deem, before its growing 

mass, 
Pelted with star-dust, stoned with meteor- 
balls, 
Heats like a hammered anvil, till at last 
Man and his works and all that stirred it- 
self 
Of its own motion, in the fiery glow 
Turns to a flaming vapor, and our orb 
Shines a new sun for earths that shall be 

born. 

I am as old as Egypt to myself, 

Brother to them that squared the pyramids 

By the same stars I watch. I read the 

page 
Where every letter is a glittering world, 
With them who looked from Shinar's clay- 
built towers, 
Ere yet the wanderer of the Midland sea 
Had missed the fallen sister of the seven. 
I dwell in spaces vague, remote, unknown, 
Save to the silent few, who, leaving earth, 
Quit all communion with their living time. 
I lose myself in that ethereal void, 
Till I have tired my wings and long to fill 
My breast with denser air, to stand, to 

walk 
With eyes not raised above my fellow-men. 
Sick of my unwalled, solitary realm, 
I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds 
I visit as mine own for one poor patch 
Of this dull spheroid and a little breath 
To shape in word or deed to serve my kind, 



174 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep, 
Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong, 
Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught 
The false wife mingles for the trusting fool, 
As he whose willing victim is himself 
Digs, forges, mingles, for his captive soul ? 



Ill 



SYMPATHIES 

The snows that glittered on the disk of 

Mars 
Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb 
Rolls in the crimson summer of its year; 
But what to me the summer or the snow 
Of worlds that throb with life in forms un- 
known, 
If life indeed be theirs; I heed not these. 
My heart is simply human; all my care 
For them whose dust is fashioned like mine 

own; 
These ache with cold and hunger, live in 

pain, 
And shake with fear of worlds more full 

of woe; 
There may be others worthier of my love, 
But such I know not save through these I 
know. 

There are two veils of language, hid be- 
neath 
Whose sheltering folds, we dare to be our- 
selves ; 
And not that other self which nods and 

smiles 
And babbles in our name ; the one is Prayer, 
Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue 
That tells our sorrows and our sins to 

Heaven ; 
The other, Verse, that throws its spangled 

web 
Around our naked speech and makes it 

bold. 
I, whose best prayer is silence; sitting 

dumb 
In the great temple where I nightly serve 
Him who is throned in light, have dared to 

claim 
The poet's franchise, though I may not hope 
To wear his garland; hear me while I tell 
My story in such form as poets use, 
But breathed in fitful whispers, as the wind 
Sighs and then slumbers, wakes and sighs 
again. 



Thou Vision, floating in the breathless air 
Between me and the fairest of the stars, 
I tell my lonely thoughts as unto thee. 
Look not for marvels of the scholar's pen 
In my rude measure ; I can only show 
A slender-margined, unillumined page, 
And trust its meaning to the flattering eye 
That reads it in the gracious light of love. 
Ah, would thou clothe thyself in breathing 

shape 
And nestle at my side, my voice should 

lend 
Whate'er my verse may lack of tender 

rhythm 
To make thee listen. 

I have stood entranced 
When, with her fingers wandering o'er the 

keys, 
The white enchantress with the golden hair 
Breathed all her soul through some un- 
valued rhyme; 
Some flower of song that long had * "t its 

bloom; 
Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang ! 
The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, 
Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing 

tones, 
And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, 
Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose 
The wind has shaken till it fills the air 
With light and fragrance. Such the won- 
drous charm 
A song can borrow when the bosom throbs 
That lends it breath. 

So from the poet's lips 
His verse sounds doubly sweet, for none 

like him 
Feels every cadence of its wave-like flow; 
He lives the passion over, while he reads, 
That shook him as he sang his lofty strain, 
And pours his life through each resounding 

line, 
As ocean, when the stormy winds are 

hushed, 
Still rolls and thunders through his billowy 
caves. 



IV 



MASTER AND SCHOLAR 

Let me retrace the record of the, years 
That made me what I am. A man most 

wise, 
But overworn with toil and bent with age, 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS 



75 



Sought me to be his scholar, — me, run 

wild 
From books and teachers, — kindled in my 

soul 
The love of knowledge ; led me to his tower, 
Showed me the wonders of the midnight 

realm 
His hollow sceptre ruled, or seemed to rule, 
Taught me the mighty secrets of the 

spheres, 
Trained me to find the glimmering specks 

of light 
Beyond the unaided sense, and on my chart 
To string them one by one, in order due, 
As on a rosary a saint his beads. 
I was his only scholar; I became 
The echo to his thought; whate'er he knew 
Was mine for asking; so from year to year 
We wrought together, till there came a time 
When I, the learner, was the master half 
Of the twinned being in the dome-crowned 

f ower. 

Minds roll in paths like planets ; they re- 
volve, 
This in a larger, that a narrower ring, 
But round they come at last to that same 

phase, 
That selfsame light and shade they showed 

before. 
I learned his annual and his monthly tale, 
His weekly axiom and his daily phrase, 
I felt them coming in the laden air, 
And watched them laboring up to vocal 

breath, 
Even as the first-born at his father's board 
Knows ere he speaks the too familiar jest 
Is on its way, by some mysterious sign 
Forewarned, the click before the striking 
bell. 

He shrivelled as I spread my growing- 
leaves, 
Till trust and reverence changed to pitying 

care ; 
He lived for me in what he once had been, 
But I for him, a shadow, a defence, 
The guardian of his fame, his guide, his 

staff, 
Leaned on so long he fell if left alone. 
I was his eye, his ear, his cunning hand, 
Love was toy spur and longing after fame, 
But his the goading thorn of sleepless age 
That sees its shortening span, its lengthen- 
ing shades, 



That clutches what it may with eager grasp, 
And drops at last with empty, outstretched 

hands. 
All this he dreamed not. He would sit 

him down 
Thinking to work his problems as of old, 
And find the star he thought so plain a 

blur, 
The columned figures labyrinthine wilds 
Without my comment, blind and senseless 

scrawls 
That vexed him with their riddles; he 

would strive 
And struggle for a while, and then his eye 
Would lose its light, and over all his mind 
The cold gray mist would settle ; and ere- 
long 
The darkness fell, and I was left alone. 



V 



ALONE 

Alone ! no climber of an Alpine cliff, 
No Arctic venturer on the waveless sea, 
Feels the dread stillness round him as it 

chills 
The heart of him who leaves the slumber- 
ing earth 
To watch the silent worlds that crowd the 
• sky. 

Alone ! And as the shepherd leaves his 

flock 
To feed upon the hillside, he meanwhile 
Finds converse in the warblings of the 

pipe 
Himself has fashioned for his vacant hour, 
So have I grown companion to myself, 
And to the wandering spirits of the air 
That smile and whisper round us in our 

dreams. 
Thus have I learned to search if I may 

know 
The whence and why of all beneath the 

stars 
And all beyond them, and to weigh my life 
As in a balance, — poising good and ill 
Against each other, — asking of the Power 
That flung me forth among the whirling 

worlds, 
If I am heir to any inborn right, 
Or only as an atom of the dust 
That every wind may blow where'er it will. 



176 FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



VI 



QUESTIONING 

I am not humble ; I was shown my place, 
Clad in such robes as Nature had at hand; 
Took what she gave, not chose; I know no 

shame, 
No fear for being simply what I am. 
I am not proud, I hold my every breath 
At Nature's mercy. I am as a babe 
Borne in a giant's arms, he knows not 

where ; 
Each several heart-beat, counted like the 

coin 
A miser reckons, is a special gift 
As from an unseen hand ; if that withhold 
Its bounty for a moment, I am left 
A clod upon the earth to which I fall. 

Something I find in me that well might 

claim 
The love of beings in a sphere above 
This doubtful twilight world of right and 

wrong; 
Something that shows me of the selfsame 

clay 
That creeps or swims or flies in humblest 

form. 
Had I been asked, before I left my bed 
Of shapeless dust, what clothing I would 

wear, 
I would have said, More angel and less 

worm ; 
But for their sake who are even such as T, 
Of the same mingled blood, I would not 

choose 
To hate that meaner portion of myself 
Which makes me brother to the least of 

men. 

I dare not be a coward with my lips 

Who dare to question all things in my soul; 

Some men may find their wisdom on their 

knees, 
Some prone and grovelling in the dust like 

slaves; 
Let the meek glowworm glisten in the dew; 
I ask to lift my taper to the sky 
As they who hold their lamps above their 

heads, 
Trusting the larger currents up aloft, 
Rather than crossing eddies round their 

breast, 
Threatening with every puff the flickering 

blaze. 



My life shall be a challenge, not a truce ! 
This is my homage to the mightier powers, 
To ask my boldest question, undismayed 
By muttered threats that some hysteric 

sense 
Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne 
Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I 

err, 
They all must err who have to feel their 

way 
As bats that fly at noon ; for what are we 
But creatures of the night, dragged forth 

by day, 
Who needs must stumble, and with stam- 
mering steps 
Spell out their paths in syllables of pain ? 

Thou wilt not hold ' in scorn the child who 

dares 
Look up to Thee, the Father, — dares to 

ask 
More than thy wisdom answers. From thy 

hand 
The worlds were cast ; yet every leaflet 

claims 
From that same hand its little shining 

sphere 
Of star-lit dew; thine image, the great sun 
Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, 
Glares in mid-heaven; but to his noontide 

blaze 
The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, 
And from his splendor steals its fairest 

hue, 
Its sweetest perfume from his scorching 

fire. 

VII 

WORSHIP 

From my lone turret as I look around 
O'er the green meadows to the ring of blue, 
From slope, from summit, and from half- 
hid vale 
The sky is stabbed with dagger-pointed 

spires, 
Their gilded symbols whirling in the wind, 
Their brazen tongues proclaiming to the 

world, 
" Here truth is sold, the only genuine ware ; 
See that it has our trade-mark ! You will 

buy 
Poison instead of food across the way, 

The lies of " this or that, each several 

name 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS 



J 77 



The standard's blazon and the battle-cry 
Of some true-gospel faction, and again 
The token of the Beast to all beside. 
And grouped round each I see a huddling 

crowd 
Alike in all things save the words they use ; 
In love, in longing, hate and fear the same. 

Whom do we trust and serve ? We speak 

of one 
And bow to many ; Athens still would find 
The shrines of all she worshipped safe 

within 
Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones 
That crowned Olympus might}- as of old. 
The god of music rules the Sabbath choir; 
The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine 
To help us please the dilettante's ear; 
Plutus limps homeward with us, as we 

leave 
The portals of the temple where we knelt 
And listened while the god of eloquence 
(Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised 
In sable vestments) with that other god 
Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nox, 
Fights in unequal contest for our souls; 
The dreadful sovereign of the under-world 
Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear 
The baying of the triple-throated hound ; 
Eros is young as ever, and as fair 
The lovely Goddess born of ocean's foam. 

These be thy gods, O Israel ! Who is he, 
The one ye name and tell us that ye serve, 
Whom ye would call me from my lonely 

tower 
To worship with the many-headed throng ? 
Is it the God that walked in Eden's grove 
In the cool hour to seek our guilty sire ? 
The God who dealt with Abraham as the 

sons 
Of that old patriarch deal with other men ? 
The jealous God of Moses, one who feels 
An image as an insult, and is wroth 
With him who made it and his child un- 
born ? 
The God who plagued his people for the sin 
Of their adulterous king, beloved of 

him, — 
The same who offers to a chosen few 
The right to praise him in eternal song 
While a vast shrieking world of endless woe 
Blends its dread chorus with their raptur- 
ous hymn ? 
Is this the God ye mean, or is it he 



Who heeds the sparrow's fall, whose loving 

heart 
Is as the pitying father's to his child, 
Whose lesson to his children is " Forgive," 
Whose plea for all, " They know not what 

thev do " ? 



VIII 

MANHOOD 

I claim the right of knowing whom I serve, 
Else is my service idle; He that asks 
My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. 
To crawl is not to worship; we have 

learned 
A drill of eyelids, bended neck and knee, 
Hanging our prayers on hinges, till we ape 
The flexures of the many-jointed worm. 
Asia has taught her Allans and salaams 
To the world's children, — we have grown 

to men ! 
We who have rolled the sphere beneath 

our feet 
To find a virgin forest, as we lay 
The beams of our rude temple, first of all 
Must frame its doorway high enough for 

man 
To pass unstooping; knowing as we do 
That He who shaped us last of living forms 
Has long enough been served by creeping 

things, 
Reptiles that left their footprints in the 

sand 
Of old sea-margins that have turned to 

stone, 
And men who learned their ritual; we de- 
mand 
To know Him first, then trust Him and 

then love 
When we have found Him worthy of our 

love, 
Tried by our own poor hearts and not be- 
fore ; 
He must be truer than the truest friend, 
He must be tenderer than a woman's love, 
A father better than the best of sires; 
Kinder than she who bore us, though we 

sin 
Oftener than did the brother we are told 
We — poor ill-tempered mortals — must 

forgive, 
Though seven times sinning threescore 

times and ten. 



178 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



This is the new world's gospel: Be ye men ! 
Try well the legends of the children's time ; 
Ye are the chosen people, God has led 
Your steps across the desert of the deep 
As now across the desert of the shore; 
Mountains are cleft before you as the sea 
Before the wandering tribe of Israel's sons ; 
Still onward rolls the thunderous caravan, 
Its coming printed on the western sky, 
A cloud by day, by night a pillared flame ; 
Your prophets are a hundred unto one 
Of them of old who cried, " Thus saith the 

Lord;" 
They told of cities that should fall in heaps, 
But yours of mightier cities that shall rise 
Where yet the lonely fishers spread their 

nets, 
Where hides the fox and hoots the midnight 

owl; 
The tree of knowledge in your garden grows 
Not single, but at every humble door; 
Its branches lend you their immortal food, 
That fills you with the sense of what ye 

are, 
No servants of an altar hewed and carved 
From senseless stone by craft of human 

hands, 
Rabbi, or dervish, brahmin, bishop, bonze, 
But masters of the charm with which they 

work 
To keep your hands from that forbidden 

tree ! 

Ye that have tasted that divinest fruit, 
Look on this world of yours with opened 

eyes ! 
Ye are as gods ! Nay, makers of your 

gods, — 
Each day ye break an image in your shrine 
And plant a fairer image where it stood: 
Where is the Moloch of your fathers' creed, 
Whose fires of torment burned for span- 
long babes ? 
Fit object for a tender mother's love ! 
Why not ? It was a bargain duly made 
For these same infants through the surety's 

act 
Intrusted with their all for earth and 

heaven, 
By Him who chose their guardian, knowing 

well 
His fitness for the task, — this, even this, 
Was the true doctrine only yesterday 
As thoughts are reckoned, — and to-day 

you hear 



In words that sound as if from human 

tongues 
Those monstrous, uncouth horrors of the 

past 
That blot the blue of heaven and shame the 

earth 
As would the saurians of the age of slime, 
Awaking from their stony sepulchres 
And wallowing hateful in the eye of day ! 



IX 



RIGHTS 

What am I but the creature Thou hast 

made ? 
What have I save the blessings Thou hast 

lent ? 
What hope I but thy mercy and thy love ? 
Who but myself shall cloud my soul with 

fear? 
Whose hand protect me from myself but 

thine ? 
I claim the rights of weakness, I, the 

babe, 
Call on my sire to shield me from the ills 
That still beset my path, not trying me 
With snares beyond my wisdom or my 

strength, 
He knowing I shall use them to my harm, 
And find a tenfold misery in the sense 
That in my childlike folly I have sprung 
The trap upon myself as vermin use, 
Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. 
Who wrought the wondrous charm that 

leads us on 
To sweet perdition, but the selfsame power 
That set the fearful engine to destroy 
His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell), 
And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous 

springs 
In such a show of innocent sweet flowers 
It lured the sinless angels and they fell ? 
Ah ! He who prayed the prayer of all 

mankind 
Summed in those few brief words the 

mightiest plea 
For erring souls before the courts of 

heaven, — 
Save us from being tempted, — lest we fall ! 

If we are only as the potter's clay 
Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, 
And broken into shards if we offend 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS 



79 



The eye of Him who made us, it is well; 
Such love as the iuseusate lump of clay 
That spins upon the swift-revolving wheel 
Bears to the hand that shapes its growing 

form, — 
Such love, no more, will be our hearts' re- 
turn 
To the great Master-workman for his 

care, — 
Or would be, save that this, our breathing 

clay, 
Is intertwined with fine innumerous threads 
That make " it conscious in its framer's 

hand ; 
And this He must remember who has filled 
These vessels with the deadly draught of 

life, — 
Life, that means death to all it claims. 

Our love 
Must kindle in the ray that streams from 

heaven, 
A faint reflection of the light divine ; 
The sun must warm the earth before the 

rose 
Can show her inmost heart-leaves to the 

sim. 

He yields some fraction of the Maker's right 
"Who gives the quivering nerve its sense of 

pain ; 
Is there not something in the pleading eye 
Of the poor brute that suffers, which ar- 
raigns 
The law that bids it suffer ? Has it not 
A claim for some remembrance in the book 
That fills its pages with the idle words 
Spoken of men ? Or is it only clay, 
Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, 
Yet all his own to treat it as He will 
And when He will to cast it at his feet, 
Shattered, dishonored, lost forevermore ? 
My dog loves me, but could he look beyond 
His earthly master, would his love extend 
To Him who — Hush ! I will not doubt 

that He 
Is better than our fears, and will not wrong 
The least, the meanest of created things ! 

He would not trust me with the smallest 

orb 
That circles through the sky; He would 

not give 
A meteor to my guidance; would not leave 
The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand; 
He locks my beating heart beneath its bars 



And keeps the key himself; He measures 

out 
The draughts of vital breath that warm 

my blood, 
Winds up the springs of instinct which un- 
coil, 
Each in its season ; ties me to my home, 
My race, my time, my nation, and my 

creed 
So closely that if I but slip my wrist 
Out of the baud that cuts it to the bone, 
Men say, " He hath a devil; " He has lent 
All that I hold in trust, as unto one 
By reason of his weakness and his years 
Not fit to hold the smallest shred in fee 
Of those most common things he calls his 

own, — 
And yet — my Rabbi tells me — He lias 

left 
The care of that to which a million worlds 
Filled with unconscious life were less than 

naught, 
Has left that mighty universe, the Soul 
To the weak guidance of our baby hands, 
Let the foul fiends have access at their will, 
Taking the shape of angels, to our hearts, — 
Our hearts already poisoned through and 

through 
With the fierce virus of ancestral sin; 
Turned us adrift with our immortal charge, 
To wreck ourselves in gulfs of endless woe. 
If what my Rabbi tells me is the truth 
Why did the choir of angels sing for joy ? 
Heaven must be compassed in a narrow 

space, 
And offer more than room enough for all 
That pass its portals ; but the under- world, 
The godless realm, the place where demons 

forge 
Their fiery darts and adamantine chains, 
Must swarm with ghosts that for a little 

while 
Had worn the garb of flesh, and being heirs 
Of all the d ulness of their stolid sires, 
And all the erring instincts of their tribe, 
Nature's own teaching, rudiments of " sin," 
Fell headlong in the snare that could not 

fail 
To trap the wretched creatures shaped of 

clay 
And cursed with sense enough to lose their 

souls ! 
Brother, thy heart is troubled at my 

word; 
Sister, I see the cloud is on thy brow. 



i8o 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



He will not blame me, He who sends not 

peace, 
But sends a sword, and bids us strike amain 
At Error's gilded crest, where in the van 
Of earth's great army, mingling with the 

best 
And bravest of its leaders, shouting loud 
The battle-cries that yesterday have led 
The host of Truth to victory, but to-day 
Are watchwords of the laggard and the 

slave, 
He leads his dazzled cohorts. God has 

made 
This world a strife of atoms and of spheres; 
With every breath I sigh myself away 
And take my tribute from the wandering 

wind 
To fan the flame of life's consuming fire; 
So, while my thought has life, it needs 

must burn, 
And, burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze, 
Where all the harvest long ago was reaped 
And safely garnered in the ancient barns. 
But still the gleaners, groping for their 

food, 
Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn 

straw, 
While the young reapers flash their glitter- 
ing steel 
Where later suns have ripened nobler 



gram : 



X 



TRUTHS 

The time is racked with birth-pangs ; every 

hour 
Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth 

newborn 
Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, 
The terror of the household and its shame, 
A monster coiling in its nurse's lap 
That some would strangle, some would only 

starve ; 
But still it breathes, and passed from hand 

to hand, 
And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts, 
Comes slowly to its stature and its form, 
Calms the rough ridges of its dragon- 
scales, 
Changes to shining locks its snaky hair, 
And moves transfigured into angel guise, 
Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of 
birth, 



And folded in the same encircling arms 
That cast it like a serpent from their hold ! 

If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace, 
Have the fine words the marble-workers 

learn 
To carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone, 
And earn a fair obituary, dressed 
In all the many-colored robes of praise, 
Be deafer than the adder to the cry 
Of that same foundling truth, until it 

grows 
To seemly favor, and at length has won 
The smiles of hard-mouthed men and 

light-lipped dames; 
Then snatch it from its meagre nurse's 

breast, 
Fold it in silk and give it food from gold ; 
So shalt thou share its glory when at last 
It drops its mortal vesture, and, revealed 
In all the splendor of its heavenly form, 
Spreads on the startled air its mighty 



wings 



Alas ! how much that seemed immortal 

truth 
That heroes fought for, martyrs died to 

save, 
Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing old 
And limping in its march, its wings un- 

plumed, 
Its heavenly semblance faded like a dream ! 
Here in this painted casket, just un- 
sealed, 
Lies what was once a breathing shape like 

thine, 
Once loved as thou art loved; there beamed 

the eyes 
That looked on Memphis in its hour of 

pride, 
That saw the walls of hundred-gated 

Thebes, 
And all the mirrored glories of the Nile. 
See how they toiled that all-consuming time 
Might leave the frame immortal in its 

tomb ; 
Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous 

gums 
That still diffuse their sweetness through 

the air, 
And wound and wound with patient fold 

on fold 
The flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn ! 
Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stain 
Of the sad mourner's tear. 



WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS 



1S1 



XI 

IDOLS 

But what is this ? 
The sacred beetle, bound upon the breast 
Of the blind heathen ! Snatch the curious 

prize, 
Give it a place among thy treasured spoils, 
Fossil and relic, — corals, encrinites, 
The fly in amber and the fish in stone, 
The twisted circlet of Etruscan gold, 
Medal, intaglio, poniard, poison-ring, — 
Place for the Mernphiau beetle with thine 

hoard ! 

Ah ! longer than thy creed has blest the 

world 
This toy, thus ravished from thy brother's 

breast, 
"Was to the heart of Mizraiin as divine, 
As holy, as the symbol that we lay 
On the still bosom of our white-robed dead, 
And raise above their dust that all may 

know 
Here sleeps an heir of glory. Loving 

friends, 
With tears of trembling faith and choking 

sobs, 
And prayers to those who judge of mortal 

deeds, 
Wrapped this poor image in the cerement's 

fold 
That Isis and Osiris, friends of man, 
Might know their own and claim the ran- 
somed soul. 

An idol ? Man was born to worship such ! 
An idol is an image of his thought; 
Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming 

stone, 
And sometimes moulds it out of glittering 

gold, 
Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome, 
Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire, 
Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words, 
Or pays his priest to make it day by day ; 
For sense must have its god as well as soul; 
A new-born Dian calls for silver shrines, 
And Egypt's holiest symbol is our own, 
The sign we worship as did they of old 
When Isis and Osiris ruled the world. 

Let us be true to our most subtle selves, 
We long to have our idols like the rest. 



Think ! when the men of Israel had their 

God 
Encamped among them, talking with their 

chief, 
Leading them in the pillar of the cloud 
And watching o'er them in the shaft of fire, 
They still must have an image; still they 

longed 
For somewhat of substantial, solid form 
Whereon to hang their garlands, and to fix 
Their wandering thoughts and gain a 

stronger hold 
For their uncertain faith, not yet assured 
If those same meteors of the day and night 
Were not mere exhalations of the soil. 

Are we less earthly than the chosen race ? 
Are we more neighbors of the living God 
Than they who gathered manna every morn, 
Reaping where none had sown, and heard 

the voice 
Of him who met the Highest in the mount, 
And brought them tables, graven with His 

hand ? 
Yet these must have their idol, brought 

their gold, 
That star-browed Apis might be god again ; 
Yea, from their ears the women brake the 

rings 
That lent such splendors to the gypsy brown 
Of sunburnt cheeks, — what more could 

womau do 
To show her pious zeal ? They went astray, 
But nature led them as it leads us all. 

We too, who mock at Israel's golden calf 
And scoff at Egypt's sacred scarabee, 
Would have our amulets to clasp and kiss, 
And flood with rapturous tears, and bear 

with us 
To be our dear companions in the dust; 
Such magic works an image in our souls ! 

Man is an embryo ; see at twenty years 
His bones, the columns that uphold his 

frame 
Not yet cemented, shaft and capital, 
Mere fragments of the temple incomplete. 
At twoscore, threescore, is he then full 

grown ? 
Nay, still a child, and as the little maids 
Dress and undress their puppets, so he tries 
To dress a lifeless creed, as if it lived, 
And change its raiment when the world 

cries shame ! 
We smile to see our little ones at play 
So grave, so thoughtful, with maternal care 



182 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



Nursing the wisps of rags they call their 

babes; — 
Does He not smile who sees us with the 

toys 
We call by sacred names, and idly feign 
To be what we have called them ? He is 

still 
The Father of this helpless nursery-brood, 
Whose second childhood joins so close its 

first, 
That in the crowding, hurrying years be- 
tween 
We scarce have trained our senses to their 

task 
Before the gathering mist has dimmed our 

eyes, 
And with our hollowed palm we help our 

ear, 
And trace with trembling hand our wrin- 
kled names, 
And then begin to tell our stories o'er, 
And see — not hear — the whispering lips 

that say, 
" You know ? Your father knew him. 

— This is he, 
Tottering and leaning on the hireling's 

arm," — 
And so, at length, disrobed of all that 

clad 
The simple life we share with weed and 

worm, 
Go to our cradles, naked as we came. 



XII 
LOVE 

What if a soul redeemed, a spirit that 

loved 
While yet on earth and was beloved in 

turn, 
And still remembered every look and tone 
Of that dear earthly sister who was left 
Among the unwise virgins at the gate, — 
Itself admitted with the bridegroom's 

train, — 
What if this spirit redeemed, amid the 

host 
Of chanting angels, in some transient lull 
Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry 
Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour 
Some wilder pulse of nature led astray 
And left an outcast in a world of fire, 
Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, 



Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill 
To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain 
From worn-out souls that only ask to die, — 
Would it not long to leave the bliss of 

heaven, — 
Bearing a little water in its hand 
To moisten those poor lips that plead in 

vain 
With Him we call our Father ? Or is all 
So changed in such as taste celestial joy 
They hear unmoved the endless wail of 

woe; 
The daughter in the same dear tones that 

hushed 
Her cradle slumbers; she who once had 

held 
A babe upon her bosom from its voice 
Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the 

same ? 

No ! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird 
Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fear- 
ful Beast 
Strode with the flesh about those fossil 

bones 
We build to mimic life with pygmy hands, — 
Not in those earliest days when men ran 

wild 
And gashed each other with their knives of 

stone, 
When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy 

brows 
And their flat hands were callous in the 

palm 
With walking in the fashion of their sires, 
Grope as they might to find a cruel god 
To work their will on such as human wrath 
Had wrought its worst to torture, and had 

left 
With rage unsated, white and stark and 

cold, 
Could hate have shaped a demon more 

malign 
Than him the dead men mummied in their 

creed 
And taught their trembling children to 

adore ! 
Made in his image ! Sweet and gracious 

souls 
Dear to my heart by nature's fondest 

names, 
Is not your memory still the precious mould 
That lends its form to Him who hears my 

prayer ? 
Thus only I behold Him, like to them, 



EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES 



i S 3 



Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath, 
If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, 
Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach 
The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin, 
Longing to clasp him in a father's arms, 
And seal his pardon with a pitying tear ! 

Four gospels tell their story to mankind, 
And none so full of soft, caressing words 
That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her 

Babe 
Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who 

learned 
In the meek service of his gracious art 
The tones which, like the medicinal balms 
That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe 

our souls. 
Oh that the loving woman, she who sat 
So long a listener at her Master's feet, 
Had left us Mary's Gospel, — all she heard 
Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man ! 
Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read 
The messages of love between the lines 
Of the same page that loads the bitter 

tongue 
Of him who deals in terror as his trade 
With threatening words of wrath that 

scorch like flame ! 
They tell of angels whispering round the 

bed 
Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, 
Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms, 
Of Him who blessed the children; of the 

land 
Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, 
Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, 
Of the white robes the winged creatures 

wear, 
The crowns and harps from whose melodi- 
ous strings 
One long, sweet anthem flows forever- 



We too had human mothers, even as Thou, 

Whom we have learned to worship as 
remote 

From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. 

The milk of woman filled our branching 
veins, 

She lulled us with her tender nursery- 
song, 

And folded round us her untiring arms, 

While the first unremembered twilight 
year 

Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel 



Her pulses in our own, — too faintly feel; 
Would that the heart of woman warmed 
our creeds ! 

Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell, 
Not from the conclave where the holy 

men 
Glare on each other, as with angry eyes 
They battle for God's glory and their own, 
Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands 
Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn, — 
Ah, not from these the listening soul can 

hear 
The Father's voice that speaks itself 

divine ! 
Love must be still our Master; till we 

learn 
What he can teach us of a woman's heart, 
We know not His whose love embraces all. 



EPILOGUE TO THE BREAK- 
FAST-TABLE SERIES 

AUTOCRAT — PROFESSOR — POET 
AT A BOOKSTORE 

Anno Domini IQJ2 

A crazy bookcase, placed before 
A low-price dealer's open door; 
Therein arrayed in broken rows 
A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, 
The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays 
Whose low estate this line betrays 
(Set forth the lesser birds to lime) 
Your choice among these books 1 

DIME ! 

Ho ! dealer; for its motto's sake 
This scarecrow from the shelf I take; 
Three starveling volumes bound in one, 
Its covers warping in the sun. 
Methinks it hath a musty smell, 
I like its flavor none too well, 
But Yorick's brain was far from dull, 
Though Hamlet pah ! 'd, and dropped his 
skull. 

Why, here comes rain ! The sky grows 

dark, — 
Was that the roll of thunder ? Hark ! 
The shop affords a safe retreat, 
A chair extends its welcome seat, 



i8 4 



FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 



The tradesman has a civil look 
(I 've paid, impromptu, for my book), 
The clouds portend a sudden shower, — 
I '11 read my purchase for an hour. 

What have I rescued from the shelf ? 
A Boswell, writing out himself ! 
For though he changes dress and name, 
The man beneath is still the same, 
Laughing or sad, by fits and starts, 
One actor in a dozen parts, 
And whatsoe'er the mask may be, 
The voice assures us, This is he. 

I say not this to cry him down; 
I find my Shakespeare in his clown, 
His rogues the selfsame parent own; 
Nay ! Satan talks in Milton's tone ! 
Where'er the ocean inlet strays, 
The salt sea wave its source betrays; 
Where'er the queen of summer blows, 
She tells the zephyr, " I 'm the rose ! " 

And his is not the playwright's page; 
His table does not ape the stage; 
What matter if the figures seen 
Are only shadows on a screen, 
He finds in them his lurking thought, 
And on their lips the words he sought, 
Like one who sits before the keys 
And plays a tune himself to please. 

And was he noted in his day ? 

Read, nattered, honored ? Who shall say ? 



Poor wreck of time the wave has cast 
To find a peaceful shore at last, 
Once glorying in thy gilded name 
And freighted deep with hopes of fame, 
Thy leaf is moistened with a tear, 
The first for many a long, long year ! 

For be it more or less of art 

That veils the lowliest human heart 

Where passion throbs, where friendship 

glows, 
Where pity's tender tribute flows, 
Where love has lit its fragrant fire, 
And sorrow quenched its vain desire, 
For me the altar is divine, 
Its flame, its ashes, — all are mine ! 

And thou, my brother, as I look 
And see thee pictured in thy book, 
Thy years on every page confessed 
In shadows lengthening from the west, 
Thy glance that wanders, as it sought 
Some freshly opening flower of thought, 
Thy hopeful nature, light and free, 
I start to find myself in thee ! 

Come, vagrant, outcast, wretch forlorn 
In leather jerkin stained and torn, 
Whose talk has filled my idle hour 
And made me half forget the shower, 
I '11 do at least as much for you, 
Your coat I '11 patch, your gilt renew, 
Read you — perhaps — some other time. 
Not bad, my bargain ! Price one dime ! 






SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 
1862-1874 



OPENING THE WINDOW 

Thus I lift the sash, so long 
Shut against the flight of song; 
All too late for vain excuse, — 
Lo. niy captive rhymes are loose ! 

Rhymes that, flitting through my brain, 
Beat against my window-pane, 
Some with gayly colored wings, 
Some, alas ! with venouied stings. 

Shall they bask in sunny rays ? 
Shall they feed on sugared praise ? 
Shall they stick with tangled feet 
On the critic's poisoned sheet ? 

Are the outside winds too rough ? 
Is the world not wide enough ? 
Go, my winged verse, and try, — 
Go, like Uncle Toby's fly! 

PROGRAMME 

OCTOBER 7, 1874 

Reader — gentle — if so be 
Such still live, and live for me, 
Will it please you to be told 
What my tenscore pages hold ? 

Here are verses that in spite 

Of myself I needs must write, 

Like the wiue that oozes first 

When the unsqueezed grapes have burst. 

Here are angry lines, "too hard! " 
Says the soldier, battle-scarred. 
Could I smile his scars away 
I would blot the bitter lay, 

Written with a knitted brow, 
Read with placid wonder now. 



1S5 



Throbbed such passion in my heart ? 
Did his wounds once really smart ? 

Here are varied strains that sing 
All the changes life can bring, 
Songs when joyous friends have met, 
Songs the mourner's tears have wet. 

See the banquet's dead bouquet, 
Fair and fragrant in its day; 
Do they read the selfsame lines, — 
He that fasts and he that dines ? 

Year by year, like milestones placed, 
Mark the record Friendship traced. 
Prisoned in the walls of time 
Life has notched itself in rhyme : 

As its seasons slid along, 
Every year a notch of song, 
From the June of long ago, 
When the rose was full in blow, 

Till the scarlet sage has come 
And the cold chrysanthemum. 
Read, but not to praise or blame; 
Are not all our hearts the same ? 

For the rest, they take their chance, — 
Some may pay a passing glance; 
Others, — well, they served a turn, — 
Wherefore written, would you learn ? 

Not for glory, not for pelf, 
Not, be sure, to please myself, 
Not for any meaner ends, — 
Always " by request of friends." 

Here 's the cousin of a king, — 
Would I do the civil thing ? 
Here 's the first-born of a queen: 
Here 's a slant-eyed Mandarin. 



i86 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



Would I polish off Japan ? 
Would I greet this famous man, 
Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah ? — 
Figaro ci and Figaro la ! 


Every kernel has its shell, 
Every chime its harshest bell, 
Every face its weariest look, 
Every shelf its emptiest book, 


Would I just this once comply ? — 
So they teased and teased till I 
(Be the truth at once confessed) 
Wavered — yielded — did my best. 


Every field its leanest sheaf, 
Every book its dullest leaf, 
Every leaf its weakest line, — 
Shall it not be so with mine ? 


Turn my pages, — never mind 
If you like not all you find; 
Think not all the grains are gold 
Sacramento's sand-banks hold. 


Best for worst shall make amends, 
Find us, keep us, leave us friends 
Till, perchance, we meet again. 
Benedicite. — Amen! 



IN THE QUIET DAYS 



AN OLD-YEAR SONG 

As through the forest, disarrayed 

By chill November, late I strayed, 

A lonely minstrel of the wood 

Was singing to the solitude: 

I loved thy music, thus I said, 

When o'er thy perch the leaves were 
spread; 

Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now 

Thy carol on the leafless bough. 

Sing, little bird ! thy note shall cheer 
The sadness of the dying year. 

When violets pranked the turf with blue 
And morning filled their cups with dew, 
Thy slender voice with rippling trill 
The budding April bowers would fill, 
Nor passed its joyous tones away 
When April rounded into May: 

Thy life shall hail no second dawn, — 
Sing, little bird ! the spring is gone. 

And I remember — welladay ! — 

Thy full-blown summer roundelay, 

As when behind a broidered screen 

Some holy maiden sings unseen: 

With answering notes the woodland rung, 

And every treetop found a tongue. 

How deep the shade ! the groves how 
fair ! 

Sing, little bird ! the woods are bare. 

The summer's throbbing chant is done 

And mute the choral antiphon; 

The birds have left the shivering pines 



To flit among the trellised vines, 
Or fan the air with scented plumes 
Amid the love-sick orange-blooms, 
And thou art here alone, — alone, — 
Sing, little bird ! the rest have flown. 

The snow has capped yon distant hill, 
At morn the running brook was still, 
From driven herds the clouds that rise 
Are like the smoke of sacrifice ; 
Erelong the frozen sod shall mock 
The ploughshare, changed to stubborn 
rock, 

The brawling streams shall soon be 
dumb, — 

Sing, little bird ! the frosts have come. 

Fast, fast the lengthening shadows creep, 
The songless fowls are half asleep, 
The air grows chill, the setting sun 
May leave thee ere thy song is done, 
The pulse that warms thy breast grow cold, 
Thy secret die with thee, untold: 

The lingering sunset still is bright, — 
Sing, little bird ! 't will soon be night. 

DOROTHY Q. 

A FAMILY PORTRAIT 

I cannot tell the story of Dorothy Q. more 
simply in prose than I have told it in verse, 
but I can add something- to it. 

Dorothy was the daughter of Judge Edmund 
Quincy, and the niece of Josiah Quincy, junior, 
the young patriot and orator who died just 
before the American Revolution, of which he 



THE ORGAN-BLOWER 



187 



was one of the most eloquent and effective pro- 
moters. The son of the latter, Josiah Quincy, 
the first mayor of Boston bearing- that name, 
lived to a great age, one of the most useful and 
honored citizens of his time. 

The canvas of the painting was so much de- 
cayed that it had to be replaced by a new one, 
in doing which the rapier thrust was of course 
filled up. 

Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess, 
Thirteen summers, or something less; 
Girlish bust, but womanly air; 
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled 

hair; 
Lips that lover has never kissed; 
Taper fingers and slender wrist; 
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; 
So they painted the little maid. 

On her hand a parrot green 

Sits unmoving and broods serene. 

Hold up the canvas full in view, — 

Look ! there 's a rent the light shines 

through, 
Dark with a century's fringe of dust, — 
That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust ! 
Such is the tale the lady old, 
Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. 

Who the painter was none may tell, — 
One whose best was not over well; 
Hard and dry, it must be confessed, 
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed ; 
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, 
Dainty colors of red and white, 
And in her slender shape are seen 
Hint and promise of stately mien. 

Look not on her with eyes of scorn, — 

Dorothy Q. was a lady born ! 

Ay ! since the galloping Normans came, 

England's annals have known her name; 

And still to the three-hilled rebel town 

Dear is that ancient name's renown, 

For many a civic wreath they won, 

The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. 

O Damsel Dorothy ! Dorothy Q.! 
Strange is the gift that I owe to you; 
Such a gift as never a king 
Save to daughter or son might bring, — 
All my tenure of heart and hand, 
All my title to house and land; 
Mother and sister and child and wife 
And joy and sorrow and death and life ! 



What if a hundred years ago 

Those close-shut lips had answered No, 

When forth the tremulous question came 

That cost the maiden her Norman name, 

And under the folds that look so still 

The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill ? 

Should I be I, or would it be 

One tenth another, to nine tenths me ? 

Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes : 
Not the light gossamer stirs with less; 
But never a cable that holds so fast 
Through all the battles of wave and blast, 
And never an echo of speech or song 
That lives in the babbling air so long ! 
There were tones in the voice that whis- 
pered then 
You may hear to-day in a hundred men. \ 

lady and lover, how faint and far 
Your images hover, — and here we are, 
Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, — 
Edward's and Dorothy's — all their own, — 
A goodly record for Time to show 

Of a syllable spoken so long ago ! — 
Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive 
For the tender whisper that bade me 
live? 

It shall be a blessing, my little maid ! 

1 will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's 

blade, 
And freshen the gold of the tarnished 

frame, 
And gild with a rhyme your household 

name; 
So you shall smile on us brave and bright 
As first you greeted the morning's light, 
And live untroubled by woes and fears 
Through a second youth of a hundred 

years. 



THE ORGAN-BLOWER 

Devoutest of my Sunday friends, 

The patient Organ-blower bends; 

I see his figure sink and rise, 

(Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering 

eyes !) 
A moment lost, the next half seen, 
His head above the scanty screen, 
Still measuring out his deep salaams 
Through quavering hymns and panting 

psalms. 



i8S 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



No priest that prays in gilded stole, 
To save a rich mail's mortgaged soul; 
No sister, fresh from holy vows, 
So humbly stoops, so meekly bows; 
His large obeisance puts to shame 
The proudest genuflecting dame, 
Whose Easter bonnet low descends 
With all the grace devotion lends. 

O brother with the supple spine, 
How much we owe those bows of thine ! 
Without thine arm to lend the breeze, 
How vain the finger on the keys ! 
Though all unmatched the player's skill, 
Those thousand throats were dumb and 

still: 
Another's art may shape the tone, 
The breath that fills it is thine own. 

Six days the silent Memnon waits 
Behind his temple's folded gates; 
But when the seventh day's sunshine falls 
Through rainbowed windows on the walls, 
He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills 
The quivering air with rapturous thrills ; 
The roof resounds, the pillars shake, 
And all the slumbering echoes wake ! 

The Preacher from the Bible-text 
With weary words my soul has vexed 
(Some stranger, fumbling far astray 
To find the lesson for the day) ; 
He tells us truths too plainly true, 
And reads the service all askew, — 
Why, why the — mischief — can't he look 
Beforehand in the service-book ? 

But thou, with decent mien and face, 
Art always ready in thy place; 
Thy strenuous blast, whate'er the tune, 
As steady as the strong monsoon; 
Thy only dread a leathery creak, 
Or small residual extra squeak, 
To send along the shadowy aisles 
A sunlit wave of dimpled smiles. 

Not all the preaching, O my friend, 
Comes from the church's pulpit end ! 
Not all that bend the knee and bow 
Yield service half so true as thou ! 
One simple task performed aright, 
With slender skill, but all thy might, 
Where honest labor does its best, 
And leaves the player all the rest. 



This many-diapasoned maze, 

Through which the breath of being strays, 

Whose music makes our earth divine, 

Has work for mortal hands like mine. 

My duty lies before me. Lo, 

The lever there ! Take hold and blow ! 

And He whose hand is on the keys 

Will play the tune as He shall please. 



AFTER THE FIRE 

[The great Boston fire occurred November 
9-10, 1872.] 

While far along the eastern sky 
I saw the flags of Havoc fly, 
As if his forces would assault 
The sovereign of the starry vault 
And hurl Him back the burning rain 
That seared the cities of the plain, 
I read as on a crimson page 
The words of Israel's sceptred sage: — 

For riches make them wings, and they 
Do as an eagle fly away. 

O vision of that sleepless night, 

What hue shall paint the mocking light 

That burned and stained the orient skies 

Where peaceful morning loves to rise, 

As if the sun had lost his way 

And dawned to make a second day, — 

Above how red with fiery glow, 

How dark to those it woke below ! 

On roof and wall, on dome and spire, 
Flashed the false jewels of the fire; 
Girt with her belt of glittering panes, 
And crowned with starry-gleaming vanes, 
Our northern queen in glory shone 
With new-born splendors not her own, 
And stood, transfigured in our eyes, 
A victim decked for sacrifice ! 

The cloud still hovers overhead, 

And still the midnight sky is red; 

As the lost wanderer strays alone 

To seek the place he called his own, 

His devious footprints sadly tell 

How changed the pathways known so 

well ; 
The scene, how new ! The tale, how old 
Ere yet the ashes have grown cold ! 



AT THE PANTOMIME 



Again I read the words that came 
Writ in the rubric of the flame: 
Howe'er we trust to mortal things, 
Each hath its pair of folded wings; 
Though long their terrors rest unspread 
Their fatal plumes are never shed; 
At last, at last, they stretch in flight, 
And blot the day and blast the night ! 

Hope, only Hope, of all that clings 
Around us, never spreads her wings; 
Love, though he break his earthly chain, 
Still whispers he will come again; 
But Faith that soars to seek the sky 
Shall teach our half-fledged souls to fly, 
Aud find, beyond the smoke and flame, 
The cloudless azure whence they came ! 

AT THE PANTOMIME 

1 8 — : REWRITTEN 1 874 

The house was crammed from roof to floor, 
Heads piled on heads at every door; 
Half dead with August's seething heat 
I crowded 011 and found my seat, 
My patience slightly out of joint, 
My temper short of boiling-point, 
Not quite at Hate mankind as such, 
Nor yet at Love them overmuch. 

Amidst the throng the pageant drew 
Were gathered Hebrews not a few, 
Black-bearded, swarthy, — at their side 
Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed: 
If scarce a Christian hopes for grace 
Who crowds one in his narrow place, 
What will the savage victim do 
Whose ribs are kneaded by a Jew ? 

Next on my left a breathing form 
Wedged up against me, close aud warm; 
The beak that crowned the bistred face 
Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race, — 
That coal-black hair, that smoke-brown 

hue, — 
Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew ! 
I started, shuddering, to the right, 
And squeezed — a second Israelite ! 

Then woke the evil brood of rage 
That slumber, tongueless, in their cage; 
I stabbed in turn with silent oaths 
The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes, 
The snaky usurer, him that crawls 
And cheats beneath the golden balls, 



Moses and Levi, all the horde, 
Spawn of the race that slew its Lord. 

Up came their murderous deeds of old, 
The grisly story Chaucer told, 
And many an ugly tale beside 
Of children caught and crucified; 
I heard the ducat-sweatiug thieves 
Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, 
And, thrust beyond the tented green, 
The lepers cry, " Unclean ! Unclean ! " 

The show went on, but, ill at ease, 

My sullen eye it could not please, 

In vain my conscience whispered, " Shame ! 

Who but their Maker is to blame ? " 

I thought of Judas aud his bribe, 

And steeled my soul against their tribe: 

My neighbors stirred; I looked again 

Full on the younger of the twain. 

A fresh young cheek whose olive hue 
The mantling blood shows faintly through; 
Locks dark as midnight, that divide 
And shade the neck on either side; 
Soft, gentle, loving eyes that gleam 
Clear as a starlit mountain stream ; — 
So looked that other child of Shem, 
The Maiden's Boy of Bethlehem ! 

And thou coulclst scorn the peerless blood 
That flows uumingled from the Flood, — 
Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains 
Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes ! 
The New World's foundling, in thy pride 
Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, 
And lo ! the very semblance there 
The Lord of Glory deigned to wear ! 

I see that radiant image rise, 
The flowing hair, the pitying eyes, 
The faintly crimsoned cheek that shows 
The blush of Sharon's opening rose, — 
Thy hands would clasp his hallowed feet 
Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat, 
Thy lips would press his garment's hem 
That curl in wrathful scorn for them ! 

A sudden mist, a watery screen, 

Dropped like a veil before the scene; 

The shadow floated from my soul, 

And to my lips a whisper stole, — 

" Thy prophets caught the Spirit's flame, 

From thee the Son of Mary came, 

With thee the Father deigned to dwell, — 

Peace be upon thee, Israel ! " 



190 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON 
TEA-PARTY 

The tax on tea, which was considered so 
odious and led to the act on which A Ballad 
of the Boston Tea Party is founded, was but 
a small matter, only twopence in the pound. 
But it involved a principle of taxation, to 
which the Colonies would not submit. Their 
objection was not to the amount, but the claim. 
The East India Company, however, sent out a 
number of tea-ships to different American ports, 
three of them to Boston. 

The inhabitants tried to send them back, 
but in vain. The captains of the ships had 
consented, if permitted, to return with their car- 
goes to England, but the consignees refused to 
discharge them from their obligations, the cus- 
tom house to give them a clearance for their 
return, and the governor to grant them a pass- 
port for going by the fort. It was easily seen 
that the tea would be gradually landed from 
the ships lying so near the town, and that if 
landed it would be disposed of, and the pur- 
pose of establishing the monopoly and raising 
a revenue effected. To prevent the dreaded 
consequence, a number of armed men, dis- 
guised like Indians, boarded the ships and 
threw their whole cargoes of tea into the dock. 
About seventeen persons boarded the ships in 
Boston harbor, and emptied three hundred and 
forty-two chests of, tea. Among these ''In- 
dians " was Major Thomas Melville, the same 
who suggested to me the poem, The Last Leaf. 

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society in 1874. 

No ! never such a draught was poured 

Since Hebe served with nectar 
The bright Olympians and their Lord, 

Her over-kind protector, — 
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape 

And took to such behaving 
As would have shamed our grandsire ape 

Before the days of shaving, — 
No ! ne'er was mingled such a draught 

In palace, hall, or arbor, 
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed 

That night in Boston Harbor ! 
It kept King George so long awake 

His brain at last got addled, 
It made the nerves of Britain shake, 

With sevenseore millions saddled; 
Before that bitter cup was drained, 

Amid the roar of cannon, 
The Western war-cloud's crimson stained 

The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon; 



Full many a six-foot grenadier 

The flattened grass had measured, 
And many a mother many a year 

Her tearful memories treasured ; 
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall, 

The mighty realms were troubled, 
The storm broke loose, but first of all 

The Boston teapot bubbled ! 

An evening party, — only that, 

No formal invitation, 
No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat, 

No feast in contemplation, 
No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band, 

No flowers, no songs, no dancing, — 
A tribe of red men, axe in hand, — 

Behold the guests advancing ! 
How fast the stragglers join the throng, 

From stall and workshop gathered ! 
The lively barber skips along 

And leaves a chin half -lathered ; 
The smith has flung his hammer down, — 

The horseshoe still is glowing; 
The truant tapster at the Crown 

Has left a beer-cask flowing; 
The cooper's boys have dropped the adze, 

And trot behind their master; 
Up run the tarry ship-yard lads, — 

The crowd is hurrying faster, — 
Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush 

The streams of white-faced millers, 
And down their slippery alleys rush 

The lusty young Fort-Hillers ; 
The rope walk lends its 'prentice crew, — 

The tories seize the omen: 
" Ay, boys, you '11 soon have work to do 

For England's rebel foemen, 
' King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang, 

That fire the mob with treason, — 
When these we shoot and those we hang 

The town will come to reason." 

On — on to where the tea-ships ride ! 

And now their ranks are forming, — 
A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side 

The Mohawk band is swarming ! 
See the fierce natives ! What a glimpse 

Of paint and fur and feather, 
As all at once the full-grown imps 

Light on the deck together ! 
A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps, 

A blanket hides the breeches, — 
And out the cursed cargo leaps, 

And overboard it pitches ! 



TO CANAAN 



191 



O woman, at the evening board 

So gracious, sweet, and purring, 
So happy while the tea is poured, 

So blest while spoons are stirring, 
What martyr can compare with thee, 

The mother, wife, or daughter, 
That night, instead of best Bohea, 

Condemned to milk and water ! 

Ah, little dreams the quiet dame 

Who plies with rock and spindle 
The patient flax, how great a flame 

Yon little spark shall kindle ! 
The lurid morning shall reveal 

A fire no king can smother 
Where British flint and Boston steel 

Have clashed against each other ! 
Old charters shrivel in its track, 

His Worship's bench has crumbled, 
It climbs and clasps the union-jack, 

Its blazoned pomp is humbled, 
The flags go down on land and sea 

Like corn before the reapers; 
So burned the fire that brewed the tea 

That Boston served her keepers ! 

The waves that wrought a century's wreck 

Have rolled o'er whig and tory; 
The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck 

Still live in song and story; 
The waters in the rebel bay 

Have kept the tea-leaf savor; 
Our old North-Enders in their spray 

Still taste a Hyson flavor; 



And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows 
With ever fresh libations, 

To cheat of slumber all her foes 
And cheer the wakening: nations ! 



NEARING THE SNOW-LINE 

1870 

Slow toiling upward from the misty vale, 
I leave the bright enamelled zones be- 
low; 
No more for me their beauteous bloom 
shall glow, 
Their lingering sweetness load the morning 

gale ; 
Few are the slender flowerets, scentless, 
pale, 
That on their ice-clad stems all trembling 

blow 
Along the margin of unmelting snow; 
Yet with unsaddened voice thy verge I hail, 
White realm of peace above the flower- 
ing line; 
Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky 
spires ! 
O'er thee undimmed the moon-girt 
planets shine, 
On thy majestic altars fade the fires 
That filled the air with smoke of vain de- 
sires, 
And all the unclouded blue of heaven is 
thine ! 



IN WAR TIME 



TO CANAAN 

A PURITAN WAR-SOXG 

AUGUST 12, 1862 

This poem, published anonymcmsly in the 
Boston Evening Transcript, was claimed by 
several persons, three, if I remember correctly, 
whose names I have or have had, but never 
thought it worth while to publish. 

Where are you going, soldiers, 
With banner, gun, and sword ? 

We 're marching South to Canaan 
To battle for the Lord ! 



What Captain leads your armies 

Along the rebel coasts ? 
The Mighty One of Israel, 
His name is Lord of Hosts ! 
To Canaan, to Canaan 
The Lord has led us forth, 
To blow before the heathen walls 
The trumpets of the North ! 

What flag is this you carry 

Along the sea and shore ? 
The same our grandsires lifted up, — 

The same our fathers bore ! 
In many a battle's tempest 

It shed the crimson rain, — 



IQ2 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



What God lias woven in his loom 


Is sweating blood and breathing flame, 


Let no man rend in twain ! 


Dead to their country's woe and shame, 


To Canaan, to Canaan 


The recreants whisper Stay ! 


The Lord has led us forth, 




To plant upon the rebel towers 


In peaceful homes, where patriot fires 


The banners of the North ! 


On Love's own altars glow, 




The mother hides her trembling fear, 


What troop is this that follows, 


The wife, the sister, checks a tear, 


All armed with picks and spades ? 


To breathe the parting word of cheer, 


These are the swarthy bondsmen, — 


Soldier of Freedom, Go ! 


The iron-skin brigades ! 




They '11 pile up Freedom's breastwork, 


In halls where Luxury lies at ease, 


They'll scoop out rebels' graves; 


And Mammon keeps his state, 


Who then will be their owner 


Where flatterers fawn and menials crouch, 


And march them off for slaves ? 


The dreamer, startled from his couch, 


To Canaan, to Canaan 


Wrings a few counters from his pouch, 


The Lord has led us forth, 


And murmurs faintly Wait ! 


To strike upon the captive's chain 




The hammers of the North ! 


In weary camps, on trampled plains 




That ring with fife and drum, 


What song is this you 're singing ? 


The battling host, whose harness gleams 


The same that Israel sung 


Along the crimson-flowing streams, 


When Moses led the mighty choir, 


Calls, like a warning voice in dreams, 


And Miriam's timbrel rung ! 


We want you, Brother ! Come ! 


To Canaan ! To Canaan ! 




The priests and maidens cried: 


Choose ye whose bidding ye will do, — 


To Canaan ! To Canaan ! 


To go, to wait, to stay ! 


The people's voice replied. 


Sons of the Freedom-loving town, 


To Canaan, to Canaan 


Heirs of the Fathers' old renown, 


The Lord has led us forth, 


The servile yoke, the civic crown, 


To thunder through its adder dens 


Await your choice To-day ! 


The anthems of the North ! 






The stake is laid ! gallant youth 


When Canaan's hosts are scattered, 


With yet unsilvered brow, 


And all her walls lie flat, 


If Heaven should lose and Hell should 


What follows next in order ? 


win, 


The Lord will see to that ! 


On whom shall lie the mortal sin, 


We '11 break the tyrant's sceptre, — 


That cries aloud, It might have been ? 


We '11 build the people's throne, — 


God calls you — answer NOW. 


When half the world is Freedom's, 




Then all the world 's our own ! 




To Canaan, to Canaan 


NEVER OR NOW 


The Lord has led us forth, 




To sweep the rebel threshing-floors, 


AN appeal 


A whirlwind from the North ! 






1862 


"THUS SAITH THE LORD, I OF- 


Listen, young heroes ! your country is 


FER THEE THREE THINGS" 


calling ! 




Time strikes the hour for the brave and 


1862 


the true ! 




Now, while the foremost are fighting and 


In poisonous dens, where traitors hide 


falling, 


Like bats that fear the day, 


Fill up the ranks that have opened for 


While all the land our charters claim 


you ! 



ONE COUNTRY 



*93 



You whom the fathers made free and de- 
feuded, 
Stain not the scroll that emblazons their 
fame ! 
You whose fair heritage spotless descended, 
Leave not your children a birthright of 
shame ! 

Stay not for questions while Freedom 
stands gasping ! 
Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his 
pall ! 
Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' 
clasping, — 
" Off for the wars ! " is enough for them 
all! 



Break from the arms that would fondly 
caress you ! 
Hark ! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are 
drawn ! 
Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall 
bless you, 
Maidens shall weep for you when you 



are gone 



Never or now ! cries the blood of a nation, 
Poured on the turf where the red rose 
should bloom ; 
Now is the day and the hour of salva- 
tion, — 
Never or now ! peals the trumpet of 
doom ! 

Never or now ! roars the hoarse-throated 
cannon 
Through the black canopy blotting the 
skies; 
Never or now! flaps the shell-blasted pen- 
non 
O'er the deep ooze where the Cumber- 
land lies ! 

From the foul dens where our brothers are 
dying, 
Aliens and foes in the land of their 
birth, — 
From the rank swamps where our martyrs 
are lying 
Pleading in vain for a handful of earth, — 

From the hot plains where they perish out- 
numbered, 
Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's 
plough, 



Comes the loud summons; too long you 
have slumbered, 
Hear the last Angel-trump, — Never or 
Now ! 



HYMN 

WRITTEN FOR THE GREAT CENTRAL FAIR 
IN PHILADELPHIA, 1 864 

[This hymn was to have been sung 1 at the 
Inaugural Ceremonies June 7, but an accident to 
the singers' platform prevented its use in that 
form.] 

Father, send on Earth again 

Peace and good- will to men; 

Yet, while the weary track of life 

Leads thy people through storm and strife, 

Help us to walk therein. 

Guide us through the perilous path; 
Teach us love that tempers wrath; 
Let the fountain of mercy flow 
Alike for helpless friend and foe, 
Children all of Thine. 

God of grace, hear our call; 

Bless our gifts, Giver of all; 

The wounded heal, the captive restore, 

And make us a nation evermore 

Faithful to Freedom and Thee. 



ONE COUNTRY 

1865 

One country ! Treason's writhing asp 
Struck madly at her girdle's clasp, 
And Hatred wrenched with might and main 
To rend its welded links in twain, 
While Mammon hugged his golden calf 
Content to take one broken half, 
While thankless churls stood idly by 
And heard unmoved a nation's cry ! 

One country ! " Nay," — the tyrant crew 
Shrieked from their dens, — " it shall be 

two ! 
Ill bodes to us this monstrous birth, 
That scowls on all the thrones of earth, 
Too broad yon starry cluster shines, 
Too proudly tower the New-World pines, 
Tear down the ' banner of the free,' 
And cleave their land from sea to sea ! " 



i94 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



One country still, though foe and "friend" 
Our seamless empire strove to rend; 
Safe ! safe ! though all the fiends of hell 
Join the red murderers' battle-yell ! 
What though the lifted sabres gleam, 
The cannons frown by shore and stream, — 
The sabres clash, the cannons thrill, 
In wild accord, One country still ! 

One country ! in her stress and strain 
We heard the breaking of a chain ! 
Look where the conquering Nation swings 
Her iron flail, — its shivered rings ! 
Forged by the rebels' crimson hand, 
That bolt of wrath shall scourge the land 
Till Peace proclaims on sea and shore 
One Country now and evermore ! 

GOD SAVE THE FLAG ! 

1865 

Washed in the blood of the brave and the 
blooming, 

Snatched from the altars of insolent foes, 
Burning with star-fires, but never consuming, 

Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose. 

Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it, 
Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall; 

Thousands have died for it, millions defend 
it, 
Emblem of justice and mercy to all: 

Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors, 

Mercy that comes with her white-handed 

train, 

Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors, 

Sheathing the sabre and breaking the 

chain. 

Borne on the deluge of old usurpations, 
Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas, 

Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations, 
Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to 
the breeze ! 

God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders, 
While its broad folds o'er the battle-field 
wave, 
Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splen- 
dors, 
Washed from its stains in the blood of 
the brave ! 



HYMN 

AFTER THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMA- 
TION 

1865 

Giver of all that crowns our days, 
With grateful hearts we sing thy praise ; 
Through deep and desert led by Thee, 
Our promised land at last we see. 

Ruler of Nations, judge our cause ! 
If we have kept thy holy laws, 
The sons of Belial curse in vain 
The day that rends the captive's chain. 

Thou God of vengeance ! Israel's Lord ! 
Break in their grasp the shield and sword, 
And make thy righteous judgments known 
Till all thy foes are overthrown ! 

Then, Father, lay thy healing hand 
In mercy on our stricken land; 
Lead all its wanderers to the fold, 
And be their Shepherd as of old. 

So shall one Nation's song ascend 
To Thee, our Ruler, Father, Friend, 
While Heaven's wide arch resounds again 
With Peace on earth, good- will to men ! 



HYMN 

FOR THE FAIR AT CHICAGO 
1865 

O God ! in danger's darkest hour, 

In battle's deadliest field, 
Thy name has been our Nation's tower, 

Thy truth her help and shield. 

Our lips should fill the air with praise, 

Nor pay the debt we owe, 
So high above the songs we raise 

The floods of mercy flow. 



Yet Thou wilt hear the prayer we * 
The song of praise we sing, — 

Thy children, who thine altar seek 
Their grateful gifts to bring. 



peak, 



FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN 



195 



Thine altar is the sufferer's bed, 
The home of woe and pain, 

The soldier's turfy pillow, red 
With battle's crimson rain. 

No smoke of burning stains the air, 

No incense-clouds arise; 
Thy peaceful servants, Lord, prepare 

A bloodless sacrifice. 

Lo ! for our wounded brothers' need, 
We bear the wine and oil; 

For us they faint, for us they bleed, 
For them our gracious toil ! 

Father, bless the gifts we bring ! 

Cause Thou thy face to shine, 
Till every nation owns her King, 

And all the earth is thine. 



UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, 
CAMBRIDGE 

APRIL 27, l86l 

Eighty years have passed, and more, 
Since under the brave old tree 
Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore 
They would follow the sign their banners 
bore, 
And fight till the land was free. 

Half of their work was done, 

Half is left to do, — 
Cambridge, and Concord, and Lexington ! 
When the battle is fought and won, 

What shall be told of you ? 

Hark ! — 't is the south- wind moans, — 

Who are the martyrs down ? 
Ah, the marrow was true in your children's 

bones 
That sprinkled with blood the cursed stones 

Of the murder-haunted town ! 

What if the storm-clouds blow ? 

What if the green leaves fall ? 
Better the crashing tempest's throe 
Than the army of worms that gnawed be- 
low; 

Trample them one and all ! 



Then, when the battle is won, 
And the land from traitors free, 
Our children shall tell of the strife begun 
When Liberty's second April sun 
Was bright on our brave old tree ! 



FREEDOM, OUR QUEEN 

Land where the banners wave last in the 

sun, 
Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one, 
Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea; 
Hark ! 't is the voice of thy children to 

thee ! 

Here at thine altar our vows we renew 
Still in thy cause to be loyal and true, — 
True to thy flag on the field and the wave, 
Living to honor it, dying to save ! 

Mother of heroes ! if perfidy's blight 
Fall on a star in thy garland of light, 
Sound but one bugle-blast ! Lo ! at the 

sign 
Armies all panoplied wheel into line ! 

Hope of the world ! thou hast broken its 
chains, — 

Wear thy bright arms while a tyrant re- 
mains, 

Stand for the right till the nations shall 
own 

Freedom their sovereign, with Law for her 
throne ! 

Freedom ! sweet Freedom ! our voices re- 
sound, 

Queen by God's blessing, unsceptred, un- 
crowned ! 

Freedom, sweet Freedom, our pulses re- 
peat, 

Warm with her life-blood, as long as they 
beat ! 

Fold the broad banner-stripes over her 

breast, — 
Crown her with star-jewels Queen of the 

West! 
Earth for her heritage, God for her friend, 
She shall reign over us, world without 

end ! 



196 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



ARMY HYMN 

" OLD HUNDRED " 

Lord of Hosts ! Almighty King ! 
Behold the sacrifice we bring ! 
To every arm thy strength impart, 
Thy spirit shed through every heart ! 

Wake in our breasts the living fires, 
The holy faith that warmed our sires; 
Thy hand hath made our Nation free; 
To die for her is serving Thee. 

Be Thou a pillared flame to show 
The midnight snare, the silent foe; 
And when the battle thunders loud, 
Still guide us in its moving cloud. 

God of all Nations ! Sovereign Lord ! 
In thy dread name we draw the sword, 
We lift the starry flag on high 
That fills with light our stormy sky. 

From treason's rent, from murder's stain, 
Guard Thou its folds till Peace shall 

reign, — 
Till fort and field, till shore and sea, 
Join our loud anthem, Praise to Thee ! 



PARTING HYMN 

" DUNDEE " 

Father of Mercies, Heavenly Friend, 

We seek thy gracious throne; 
To Thee our faltering prayers ascend, 

Our fainting hearts are known ! 

From blasts that chill, from suns that 
smite, 

From every plague that harms; 
In camp and march, in siege and fight, 

Protect our men-at-arms ! 

Though from our darkened lives they take 
What makes our life most dear, 

We yield them for their country's sake 
With no relenting tear. 

Our blood their flowing veins will shed, 
Their wounds our breasts will share; 

Oh, save us from the woes we dread, 
Or grant us strength to bear ! 



Let each unhallowed cause that brings 

The stern destroyer cease, 
Thy flaming angel fold his wings, 

And seraphs whisper Peace ! 

Thine are the sceptre and the sword, 
Stretch forth thy mighty hand, — 

Reign Thou our kingless nation's Lord, 
Rule Thou our throneless land ! 



THE FLOWER OF LIBERTY 

What flower is this that greets the morn, 
Its hues from Heaven so freshly born ? 
With burning star and flaming band 
It kindles all the sunset land: 
Oh tell us what its name may be, — 
Is this the Flower of Liberty ? 
It is the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty ! 

In savage Nature's far abode 

Its tender seed our fathers sowed; 

The storm-winds rocked its swelling bud, 

Its opening leaves were streaked with 

blood, 
Till lo ! earth's tyrants shook to see 
The full-blown Flower of Liberty ! 
Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty ! 

Behold its streaming rays unite, 

One mingling flood of braided light, — 

The red that fires the Southern rose, 

With spotless white from Northern snows, 

And, spangled o'er its azure, see 

The sister Stars of Liberty ! 

Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty ! 

The blades of heroes fence it round, 
Where'er it springs is holy ground; 
From tower and dome its glories spread; 
It waves where lonely sentries tread ; 
It makes the land as ocean free, 
And plants an empire on the sea ! 
Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty ! 

Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower. 
Shall ever float on dome and tower, 
To all their heavenly colors true, 
In blackening frost or crimson dew, — 



THE SWEET LITTLE MAN 



197 



And God love us as we love thee, 
Thrice holy Flower of Liberty ! 
Then hail the banner of the free, 
The starry Flower of Liberty ! 



THE SWEET LITTLE MAN 

DEDICATED TO THE STAY-AT-HOME 
RANGERS 

Now, while our soldiers are fighting our 
battles, 
Each at his post to do all that he can, 
Down among rebels and contraband chat- 
tels, 
What are you doing, my sweet little man ? 

All the brave boys under canvas are sleep- 
ing, 
All of them pressing to march with the 
van, 

Far from the home where their sweethearts 
are weeping; 
What are you waiting for, sweet little 
man ? 

You with the terrible warlike mustaches, 

Fit for a colonel or chief of a clan, ' 
You with the waist made for sword-belts 
and sashes, 
Where are your shoulder-straps, sweet 
little man ? 

Bring him the buttonless garment of 
woman ! 
Cover his face lest it freckle and tan; 
Muster the Apron-String Guards on the 
Common, 
That is the corps for the sweet little 
man ! 

Give him for escort a file of young misses, 
Each of them armed with a deadly rattan; 

They shall defend him from laughter and 
hisses, 
Aimed by low boys at the sweet little 



All the fair maidens about him shall cluster, 
Pluck the white feathers from bonnet 
and fan, 

Make him a plume like a turkey-wing 
duster, — 
That is the crest for the sweet little man ! 



Oh, but the Apron-String Guards are the 
fellows ! 
Drilling each day since our troubles be- 
gan, — 
" Handle your walking-sticks ! " " Shoulder 
umbrellas ! " 
That is the style for the sweet little man ! 

Have we a nation to save? In the first 
place 

Saving ourselves is the sensible plan, — 
Surely the spot where there 's shooting 's 

the worst place 
Where I can stand, says the sweet little 

man. 

Catch me confiding my person with stran- 
gers ! 
Think how the cowardly Bull-Runners 
ran ! 
In the brigade of the Stay-at-Home Rangers 
Marches my corps, says the sweet little 
man. 

Such was the stuff of the Malakoff-takers, 
Such were the soldiers that scaled the 
Redan; 
Truculent housemaids and bloodthirsty 
Quakers, 
Brave not the wrath of the sweet little 
man ! 

Yield him the sidewalk, ye nursery maid- 
ens ! 
Sauve qui peut ! Bridget, and right 
about ! Ann; — 
Fierce as a shark in a school of menhadens, 
See him advancing, the sweet little man ! 

When the red flails of the battle-field's 
threshers 
Beat out the continent's wheat from its 
bran, 
While the wind scatters the chaffy seceshers, 
What will become of our sweet little 
man? 

When the brown soldiers come back from 
the borders, 
How will he look while his features they 
scan ? 
How will he feel when he gets marching 
orders, 
Signed by his lady love ? sweet little 
man ! 



: 9 S 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



Fear not for him, though the rebels expect 
him, — 
Life is too precious to shorten its span; 
Woman her broomstick shall raise to pro- 
tect him, 
Will she not fight for the sweet little 
man? 

Now then, nine cheers for the Stay-at-Home 
Ranger ! 
Blow the great fish-horn and beat the 
big pan ! 
First in the field that is farthest from 
danger, 
Take your white-feather plume, sweet 
little man ! 

UNION AND LIBERTY 

Flag of the heroes who left us their glory, 
Borne through their battle-fields' thun- 
der and flame, 
Blazoned in song and illumined in story, 
Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame ! 
Up with our banner bright, 
Sprinkled with starry light, 
Spread its fair emblems from mountain 
to shore, 
While through the sounding sky 
Loud rings the Nation's cry, — 
Union and Liberty ! One evermore ! 

Light of our firmament, guide of our Na- 
tion, 
Pride of her children, and honored afar, 



Let the wide beams of thy full constellation 
Scatter each cloud that would darken 
a star ! 
Up with our banner bright, etc. 

Empire unsceptred ! what foe shall assail 
thee, 
Bearing the standard of Liberty's van ? 
Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail 
thee, 
Striving with men for the birthright of 
man ! 
Up with our banner bright, etc. 

Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, 
Dawns the dark hour when the sword 
thou must draw, 
Then with the arms of thy millions united, 
Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and 
Law ! 
Up with our banner bright, etc. 

Lord of the Universe ! shield us and guide 
us, 
Trusting Thee always, through shadow 
and sun ! 
Thou hast united us, who shall divide us ? 
Keep us, oh keep us the Many in One ! 
Up with our banner bright, 
Sprinkled with starry light, 
Spread its fair emblems from mountain 
to shore, 
While through the sounding sky 
Loud rings the Nation's cry, — 
Union and Liberty ! One evermore ! 



SONGS OF WELCOME AND FAREWELL 



AMERICA TO RUSSIA 
august 5, 1866 

Read by Hon. G. V. Fox at a dinner given to 
the Mission from the United States, St. Peter- 
burg. 

Though watery deserts hold apart 
The worlds of East and West, 

Still beats the selfsame human heart 
In each proud Nation's breast. 

Our floating turret tempts the main 
And dares the howling blast 



To clasp more close the golden chain 
That long has bound them fast. 

In vain the gales of ocean sweep, 

In vain the billows roar 
That chafe the wild and stormy steep 

Of storied Elsinore. 

She comes ! She comes ! her banners dip 

In Neva's flashing tide, 
With greetings on her cannon's lip, 

The storm-god's iron bride ! 

Peace garlands with the olive-bough 
Her thunder-bearing tower, 



AT THE BANQUET TO THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS 199 



And plants before her cleaving prow 


Look on the lips that are smiling to greet 


The sea-foam's milk-white flower. 


thee, 




See the fresh flowers that a people has 


No prairies heaped their garnered store 


strewn: 


To fill her sunless hold, 


Count them thy sisters and brothers that 


Not rich Nevada's gleaming ore 


meet thee; 


Its hidden caves infold, 


Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine 


But lightly as the sea-bird swings 


own ! 


She floats the depths above, 


Fires of the North, in eternal communion, 


A breath of flame to lend her wings, 


Blend your broad flashes with evening's 


Her freight a people's love ! 


bright star ! 




God bless the Empire that loves the Great 


"When darkness hid the starry skies 


Union ; 


In war's long winter night, 


Strength to her people ! Long life to 


One ray still cheered our straining eyes, 


the Czar ! 


The far-off Northern light ! 




And now the friendly rays return 


AT THE BANOUET TO THE 


From lights that glow afar, 


GRAND DUKE ALEXIS 


Those clustered lamps of Heaven that 




burn 


DECEMBER 9, 1 87 1 


Around the Western Star. 






One word to the guest we have gathered 


A nation's love in tears and smiles 


to greet ! 


"We bear across the sea, 


The echoes are longing that word to re- 


Neva of the banded isles, 


peat, — 


We moor our hearts in thee ! 


It springs to the lips that are waiting to part, 




For its syllables spell themselves first in 




the heart. 


WELCOME TO THE GRAND 


Its accents may vary, its sound may be 


DUKE ALEXIS 


strange, 




But it bears a kind message that nothing 


MUSIC HALL, DECEMBER 6, 1 87 1 


can change; 




The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell, 


Sung to the Russian national air by the chil- 


For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full 


dren of the public schools. 


well. 


Shadowed so long by the storm-cloud of 


That word ! How it gladdened the Pilgrim 


danger, 


of yore 


Thou whom the prayers of an empire 


As he stood in the snow on the desolate 


defend, 


shore ! 


Welcome, thrice welcome ! but not as a 


When the shout of the sagamore startled 


stranger, 


his ear 


Come to the nation that calls thee its 


In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music 


friend ! 


to hear ! 


Bleak are our shores with the blasts of 


Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire, — 


December, 


The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the 


Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow; 


fire; 


Throbbing and warm are the hearts that 


He had nothing to give, — the poor lord 


remember 


of the land, — 


Who was our friend when the world was 


But he gave him a Welcome, — his heart 


our foe. 


in his hand ! 



200 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



The tribe of the sachem has melted away, 
But the word that he spoke is remembered 

to-day, 
And the page that is red with the record 

of shame 
The tear-drops have whitened round Samo- 

set's name. 

The word that he spoke to the Pilgrim of 

old 
May sound like a tale that has often been 

told; 
But the welcome we speak is as fresh as 

the dew, — 
As the kiss of a lover, that always is new ! 

Ay, Guest of the Nation ! each roof is 
thine own 

Through all the broad continent's star-ban- 
nered zone; 

From the shore where the curtain of morn 
is uprolled, 

To the billows that flow through the gate- 
way of gold. 

The snow-crested mountains are calling 

aloud; 
Nevada to Ural speaks out of the cloud, 
And Shasta shouts forth, from his throne 

in the sky, 
To the storm-splintered summits, the peaks 

of Altai ! 

You must leave him, they say, till the sum- 
mer is green ! 

Both shores are his home, though the 
waves roll between; 

And then we '11 return him, with thanks 
for the same, 

As fresh and as smiling and tall as he 
came. 

But ours is the region of arctic delight; 

We can show him auroras and pole-stars 
by night; 

There 's a Muscovy sting in the ice-tem- 
pered air, 

And our firesides are warm and our maid- 
ens are fair. 

The flowers are full-blown in the garlanded 
hall, — 

They will bloom round his footsteps wher- 
ever they fall; 



For the splendors of youth and the sun- 
shine they bring 

Make the roses believe 't is the summons 
of Spring. 

One word of our language he needs must 

know well, 
But another remains that is harder to 

spell ; 
We shall speak it so ill, if he wishes to 

learn 
How we utter Farewell, he will have to 

return ! 



AT THE BANQUET TO THE 
CHINESE EMBASSY 

AUGUST 21, 1868 

Brothers, whom we may not reach 
Through the veil of alien speech, 
Welcome ! welcome ! eyes can tell 
What the lips in vain would spell, — 
Words that hearts can understand, 
Brothers from the Flowery Land ! 

We, the evening's latest born, 
Hail the children of the morn ! 
We, the new creation's birth, 
Greet the lords of ancient earth, 
From their storied walls and towers 
Wandering to these tents of ours ! 

Land of wonders, fair Cathay, 

Who long hast shunned the staring day, 

Hid in mists of poet's dreams 

By thy blue and yellow streams, — 

Let us thy shadowed form behold, — 

Teach us as thou didst of old. 

Knowledge dwells with length of days; 
Wisdom walks in ancient ways: 
Thine the compass that could guide 
A nation o'er the stormy tide, 
Scourged by passions, doubts, and fears, 
Safe through thrice a thousand years ! 

Looking from thy turrets gray 
Thou hast seen the world's decay, — 
Egypt drowning in her sands, — 
Athens rent by robbers' hands, — 
Rome, the wild barbarian's prey, 
Like a storm-cloud swept away: 



AT THE BANQUET TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY 201 



Looking from thy turrets gray 
Still we see thee. Where are they ? 
And lo ! a new-born nation waits, 
Sitting at the golden gates 
That glitter by the sunset sea, — 
Waits with outspread arms for thee ! 

Open wide, ye gates of gold, 
To the. Dragon's banner-fold ! 
Builders of the mighty wall, 
Bid your mountain barriers fall ! 
So may the girdle of the sun 
Bind the East and West in one, 

Till Mount Shasta's breezes fan 
The snowy peaks of Ta Sieue-Shan, — 
Till Erie blends its waters blue 
With the waves of Tung-Ting-Hu, — 
Till deep Missouri lends its flow 
To swell the rushing Hoang-Ho ! 



AT THE BANOUET TO THE 
JAPANESE EMBASSY 

AUGUST 2, 1872 

We welcome you, Lords of the Land of 
the Sun ! 

The voice of the many sounds feebly 
through one; 

Ah ! would 't were a voice of more musical 
tone, 

But the dog-star is here, and the song- 
birds have flown. 

And what shall I sing that can cheat you 

of smiles, 
Ye heralds of peace from the Orient isles ? 
If only the Jubilee — Why did you wait ? 
You are welcome, but oh ! you 're a little 

too late ! 

We have greeted our brothers of Ireland 
and France, 

Round the fiddle of Strauss we have joined 
in the dance, 

We have lagered Herr Saro, that fine- 
looking man, 

And glorified Godfrev, whose name it is 
Dan. 

What a pity ! we 've missed it and you Ve 

missed it too, 
We had a day ready and waiting for you; 



We 'd have shown you — provided, of 

course, you had come — 
You 'd have heard — no, you would n't, 

because it was dumb. 

And then the great organ ! The chorus's 

shout ! 
Like the mixture teetotalers call " Cold 

without " — 
A mingling of elements, strong, but not 

sweet ; 
And the drum, just referred to, that " could 

n't be beat." 

The shrines of our pilgrims are not like 

your own, 
Where white Fusiyama lifts proudly its cone, 
(The snow-mantled mountain we see on 

the fan 
That cools our hot cheeks with a breeze 

from Japan.) 

But ours the wide temple where worship is 

free 
As the wind of the prairie, the wave of the 

sea; 
You may build your own altar wherever 

you will, 
For the roof of that temple is over you still. 

One dome overarches the star-bannered 

shore; 
You may enter the Pope's or the Puritan's 

door, 
Or pass with the Buddhist his gateway of 

bronze, 
For a priest is but Man, be he bishop or 

bonze. 

And the lesson we teach with the sword 

and the pen 
Is to all of God's children, " We also are 

men ! 
If you wrong us we smart, if you prick us 

we bleed, 
If you love us, no quarrel with color or 

creed ! " 

You '11 find us a well-meaning, free-spoken 

crowd, 
Good - natured enough, but a little too 

loud, — 
To be sure, there is always a bit of a row 
When we choose our Tycoon, and especially 

now. 



202 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 






You '11 take it all calmly, — we want you 

to see 
What a peaceable fight such a contest can 

be, 
And of one thing be certain, however it 

ends, 
You will find that our voters have chosen 

your friends. 

If the horse that stands saddled is first in 

the race, 
You will greet your old friend with the 

weed in his face; 
And if the white hat and the White House 

agree, 
You '11 find H. G-. really as loving as he. 

But oh, what a pity — once more I must 
say — 

That we could not have joined in a " Japan- 
ese day " ! 

Such greeting we give you to-night as we 
can; 

Long life to our brothers and friends of 
Japan ! 

The Lord of the mountain looks down from 
his crest 

As the banner of morning unfurls in the 
West; 

The Eagle was always the friend of the 
Sun ; 

You are welcome ! — The song of the cage- 
bird is done. 



BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTH- 
DAY 

NOVEMBER 3, 1 864 

O even-handed Nature ! we confess 
This life that men so honor, love, and bless 
Has filled thine olden measure. Not the 
less 

We count the precious seasons that remain; 
Strike not the level of the golden grain, 
But heap it high with years, that earth 
may gain 

What heaven can lose, — for heaven is rich 

in song: 
Do not all poets, dying, still prolong 
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng, 



Where, blind no more, Ionia's bard is seen, 
And England's heavenly minstrel sits be 

tween 
The Mantuan and the wan-cheeked Floren- 
tine ? 

This was the first sweet singer in the 

cage 
Of our close-woven life. A new-born age 
Claims in his vesper song its heritage: 

Spare us, oh spare us long our heart's de- 
sire ! 

Moloch, who calls our children through the 
fire, 

Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre. 

We count not on the dial of the sun 

The hours, the minutes, that his sands have 

run; 
Rather, as on those flowers that one by 

one 

From earliest dawn their ordered bloom 

display 
Till evening's planet with her guiding ray 
Leads in the blind old mother of the day, 

We reckon by his songs, each song a 

flower, 
The long, long daylight, numbering hour 

by hour, 
Each breathing sweetness like a bridal 

bower. 

His morning glory shall we e'er forget ? 
His noontide's full-blown lily coronet ? 
His evening primrose has not opened yet; 

Nay, even if creeping Time should hide the 

skies 
In midnight from his century-laden eyes, 
Darkened like his who sang of Paradise, 

Would not some hidden song-bud open 

bright 
As the resplendent cactus of the night 
That floods the gloom with fragrance and 

with light ? 

How can we praise the verse whose music 

flows 
With solemn cadence and majestic close, 
Pure as the dew that filters through the 

rose ? 



A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ 



203 



How shall we thank him that in evil days 
He faltered never, — nor for blame, nor 

praise, 
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier 

lays ? 

But as his boyhood was of manliest hue, 
So to his youth his manly years were true, 
All dyed in royal purple through and 
through ! 

He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is 

strung 
Needs not the flattering toil of mortal 

tongue : 
Let not the singer grieve to die unsung ! 

Marbles forget their message to mankind: 

In his own verse the poet still we find, 

In his own page his memory lives enshrined, 

As in their amber sweets the smothered 

bees, — 
As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze, 
Lies self-embalmed amidst the mouldering 

trees. 

Poets, like youngest children, never grow 
Out of their mother's fondness. Nature 

so 
Holds their soft hands, and will not let 

them go, 

Till at the last they track with even feet 
Her rhythmic footsteps, and their pulses 

beat 
Twinned with her pulses, and their lips re- 
peat 

The secrets she has told them, as their 

own: 
Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known, 
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful 

throne ! 

O lover of her mountains and her woods, 
Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes, 
Where Love himself with tremulous step 
intrudes, 

Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred 

fire: 
Far be the day that claims thy sounding 

lyre 
To join the music of the angel choir ! 



Yet, since life's amplest measure must be 

filled, 
Since throbbing hearts must be forever 

stilled, 
And all must fade that evening sunsets gild, 

Grant, Father, ere he close the mortal eyes 
That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice, 
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened 
skies ! 

Then, when his summons comes, since come 

it must, 
And, looking heavenward with unfaltering 

trust, 
He wraps his drapery round him for the 

dust, 

His last fond glance will show him o'er his 

head 
The Northern fires beyond the zenith 

spread 
In lambent glory, blue and white and 

red, — 

The Southern cross without its bleeding 

load, 
The milky way of peace all freshly strowed, 
And every white-throned star fixed in its 

lost abode ! 



A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ 

[Written on the eve of Agassiz's journey to 
Brazil in I860.] 

How the mountains talked together, 

Looking down upon the weather, 

When they heard our friend had planned his 

Little trip among the Andes ! 

How they '11 bare their snowy scalps 

To the climber of the Alps 

When the cry goes through their passes, 

" Here comes the great Agassiz ! " 

" Yes, I 'm tall," says Chimborazo, 

" But I wait for him to say so, — 

That 's the only thing that lacks, — he 

j Must see me, Cotopaxi ! " 
" Ay ! ay ! " the fire-peak thunders, 
" And he must view my wonders ! 

I I 'm but a lonely crater 
Till I have him for spectator ! " 
The mountain hearts are yearning, 
The lava-torches burning:, 



The rivers bend to meet hi 



111, 



204 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



The forests bow to greet him, 

It thrills the spinal column 

Of fossil fishes solemn, 

And glaciers crawl the faster 

To the feet of their old master ! 

Heaven keep him well and hearty, 

Both him and all his party ! 

From the sun that broils and smites, 

From the centipede that bites, 

From the hail-storm and the thunder, 

From the vampire and the condor, 

From the gust upon the river, 

From the sudden earthquake shiver, 

From the trip of mule or donkey, 

From the midnight howling monkey, 

From the stroke of knife or dagger, 

From the puma and the jaguar, 

From the horrid boa-constrictor 

That has scared us in the pictur', 

From the Indians of the Pampas 

Who would dine upon their grampas, 

From every beast and vermin 

That to think of sets us squirmin', 

From every snake that tries on 

The traveller his p'ison, 

From every pest of Natur', 

Likewise the alligator, 

And from two things left behind him, - 

(Be sure they '11 try to find him,) 

The tax-bill and assessor, — 

Heaven keep the great Professor ! 

May he find, with his apostles, 

That the land is full of fossils, 

That the waters swarm with fishes 

Shaped according to his wishes, 

That every pool is fertile 

In fancy kinds of turtle, 

New birds around him singing, 

New insects, never stinging, 

With a million novel data 

About the articulata, 

And facts that strip off all husks 

From the history of mollusks. 

And when, with loud Te Deum, 
He returns to his Museum, 
May he find the monstrous reptile 
That so long the land has kept ill 
By Grant and Sherman throttled, 
And by Father Abraham bottled, 
(All specked and streaked and mottled 
With the scars of murderous battles, 
Where he clashed the iron rattles 
That gods and men he shook at,) 
For all the world to look at ! 



God bless the great Professor ! 
And Madam, too, God bless her ! 
Bless him and all his band, 
On the sea and on the land, 
Bless them head and heart and hand, 
Till their glorious raid is o'er, 
And they touch our ransomed shore ! 
Then the welcome of a nation, 
With its shout of exultation, 
Shall awake the dumb creation, 
And the shapes of buried seons 
Join the living creature's pseans, 
Till the fossil echoes roar; 
While the mighty megalosaurus 
Leads the paheozoic chorus, — 
God bless the great Professor, 
And the land his proud possessor, — 
Bless them now and evermore ! 



AT A DINNER TO ADMIRAL 
FARRAGUT 

JULY 6, 1865 

Now, smiling friends and shipmates all, 

Since half our battle 's won, 
A broadside for our Admiral ! 

Load every crystal gun ! 
Stand ready till I give the word, — 

You won't have time to tire, — 
And when that glorious name is heard, 

Then hip ! hurrah ! and fire ! 

Bow foremost sinks the rebel craft, — 

Our eyes not sadly turn 
And see the pirates huddling aft 

To drop their raft astern : 
Soon o'er the sea-worm's destined prey 

The lifted wave shall close, — 
So perish from the face of day 

All Freedom's banded foes ! 

But ah ! what splendors fire the sky ! 

What glories greet the morn ! 
The storm-tost banner streams on high, 

Its heavenly hues new-born ! 
Its red fresh dyed in heroes' blood, 

Its peaceful white more pure, 
To float unstained o'er field and flood 

While earth and seas endure ! 

All shapes before the driving blast 
Must glide from mortal view; 



AT A DINNER TO GENERAL GRANT 



205 



Black roll the billows of the past 

Behind the present's bine, 
Fast, fast, are lessening in the light 

The names of high renown, — 
Van Tromp's proud besom fades from 
sight, 

And Nelson 's half hull down ! 

Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea 

Or skirts the safer shores 
Of all that bore to victory 

Our stout old commodores; 
Hull, Bainbridge, Porter, — where are 
they ? 

The waves their answer roll, 
" Still bright in memory's sunset ray, — 

God rest each gallant soul ! " 

A brighter name must dim their light 

With more than noontide ray, 
The Sea-King of the " River Fight," 

The Conqueror of the Bay, — 
Now then the broadside ! cheer on cheer 

To greet him safe on shore ! 
Health, peace, and many a bloodless year 

To fio-ht his battles o'er ! 



AT A DINNER TO GENERAL 
GRANT 

JULY 31, 1865 

When treason first began the strife 

That crimsoned sea and shore, 
The Nation poured her hoarded life 

On Freedom's threshing-floor; 
From field and prairie, east and west, 

From coast and hill and plain, 
The sheaves of ripening manhood pressed 

Thick as the bearded grain. 

Rich was the harvest; souls as true 

As ever battle tried ; 
But fiercer still the conflict grew, 

The floor of death more wide; 
Ah, who forgets that dreadful day 

Whose blot of grief and shame 
Four bitter years scarce wash away 

In seas of blood and flame ? 

Vain, vain the Nation's lofty boasts, 

Vain all her sacrifice ! 
" Give me a man to lead my hosts, 

O God in heaven ! " she cries. 



While Battle whirls his crushing flail, 
And plies his winnowing fan, — 

Thick flies the chaff on every gale, — 
She cannot find her man ! 

Bravely they fought who failed to win, — 

Our leaders battle-scarred, — 
Fighting the hosts of hell and sin, 

But devils die always hard ! 
Blame not the broken tools of God 

That helped our sorest needs; 
Through paths that martyr feet have trod 

The conqueror's steps He leads. 

But now the heavens grow black with 
doubt, 

The ravens fill the sky, 
" Friends " plot within, foes storm with- 
out, 

Hark, — that despairing cry, 
" Where is the heart, the hand, the brain 

To dare, to do, to plan ? " 
The bleeding Nation shrieks in vain, — 

She has not found her man ! 

A little echo stirs the air, — 

Some tale, whate'er it be, 
Of rebels routed in their lair 

Along the Tennessee. 
The little echo spreads and grows, 

And soon the trump of Fame 
Has taught the Nation's friends and foes 

The "man on horseback" 's name. 

So well his w r arlike wooing sped, 

No fortress might resist 
His billets-doux of lisping lead, 

The bayonets in his fist, — 
With kisses from his cannons' mouth 

He made his passion known 
Till Vicksburg, vestal of the South, 

Unbound her virgin zone. 

And still where'er his banners led 

He conquered as he came, 
The trembling hosts of treason fled 

Before his breath of flame, 
And Fame's still gathering echoes grew 

Till high o'er Richmond's towers 
The starry fold of Freedom flew, 

And all the land was ours. 

Welcome from fields where valor fought 
To feasts where pleasure waits; 



206 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



A Nation gives you smiles unbought 

At all ber opening gates ! 
Forgive us when we press your band, 

Your war-worn features scan, — 
God sent you to a bleeding land; 

Our Nation found its man ! 



TO H. W. LONGFELLOW 

BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE, 
MAY 27, 1868 

Our Poet, wbo has taught the Western 
breeze 

To waft his songs before him o' er the 
seas, 

Will find them wberesoe'er his wander- 
ings reach 

Borne on the spreading tide of English 
speech 
Twin with the rhythmic waves that kiss the 
farthest beach. 

Where shall the singing bird a stranger 

be 
That finds a nest for him in every 

tree ? 
How shall he travel who can never go 
Where his own voice the echoes do not 

know, 
Where his own garden flowers no longer 

learn to grow ? 

Ah ! gentlest soul ! how gracious, how 
benign 

Breathes through our troubled life that 
voice of thine, 

Filled with a sweetness born of happier 
spheres, 

That wins and warms, that kindles, soft- 
ens, cheers, 
That calms the wildest woe and stays the 
bitterest tears ! 

Forgive the simple words that sound 
like praise; 

The mist before me dims my gilded 
phrase ; 

Our speech at best is half alive and cold, 

And save that tenderer moments make 
us bold 
Our whitening lips would close, their tru- 
est truth untold. 



We who behold our autumn sun be- 
low 

The Scorpion's sign, against the Archer's 
bow, 

Know well what parting means of friend 
from friend; 

After the snows no freshening dews de- 
scend, 
And what the frost has marred, the sun- 
shine will not mend. 

So we all count the months, the weeks, 

the days, 
That keep thee from us in unwonted 

ways, 
Grudging to alien hearths our widowed 

time; 
And one has shaped a breath in artless 

rhyme 
That sighs, "We track thee still through 

each remotest clime." 

What wishes, longings, blessings, prayers 

shall be 
The more than golden freight that floats 

with thee ! 
And know, whatever welcome thou shalt 

find, — 
Thou who hast won the hearts of half 

mankind, — 
The proudest, fondest love thou leavest 

still behind ! 



TO CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED 
EHRENBERG 

FOR HIS " JUBIL.EUM " AT BERLIN, NO- 
VEMBER 5, 1868 

This poem was written at the suggestion of 
Mr. George Bancroft, the historian. 

Thou who hast taught the teachers of man- 
kind 
How from the least of things the might- 
iest grow, 
What marvel jealous Nature made thee 
blind, 
Lest man should learn what angels long 
to know ? 
Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow, 
In the thick-moted sunbeam's sifted 
light 



A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS 



207 



Hast trained thy downward-pointed tube 
to show 
Worlds within worlds unveiled to mortal 
sight, 
Even as the patient watchers of the 
night, — 
The cyclope gleaners of the fruitful 
skies, — 
Show the wide misty way where heaven is 
white 
All paved with suns that daze our won- 
dering eyes. 

Far o'er the stormy deep an empire lies, 
Beyond the storied islands of the blest, 
That waits to see the lingering day-star 
rise; 
The forest-cinctured Eden of the West; 
Whose queen, fair Freedom, twines her 
iron crest 
With leaves from every wreath that mor- 
tals wear, 
But loves the sober garland ever best 
That science lends the sage's silvered 
hair ; — 
Science, who makes life's heritage more 
fair, 
Forging for every lock its mastering 
key, 
Filling with life and hope the stagnant 
air, 
Pouring the light of Heaven o'er land 
and sea ! 
From her unsceptred realm we come to 
thee, 
Bearing our slender tribute in our hands; 
Deem it not worthless, humble though it 
be, 
Set by the larger gifts of older lands: 
The smallest fibres weave the strongest 
bands, — 
Li narrowest tubes the sovereign nerves 
are spun, — 
A little cord along the deep sea-sands 
Makes the live thought of severed na- 
tions one: 
Thy fame has journeyed westering with 
the sun, 
Prairies and lone sierras know thy name 



And the long day of service nobly done 
That crowns thy darkened evening with 
its flame ! 

One with the grateful world, we own thy 
claim, — 
Nay, rather claim our right to join the 
throng 
Who come with varied tongues, but hearts 
the same, 
To hail thy festal morn with smiles and 
song; 
Ah, happy they to whom the joys belong 

Of peaceful triumphs that can never die 
From History's record, — not of gilded 
wrong, 
But golden truths that, while the world 
goes by 
With all its empty pageant, blazoned high 
Around the Master's name forever shine! 
So shines thy name illumined in the sky, — 
Such joys,' such triumphs, such remem- 
brance thine ! 



A TOAST TO WILKIE COLLINS 

FEBRUARY 1 6, 1 874 

The painter's and the poet's fame 

Shed their twinned lustre round his name, 

To gild our story-teller's art, 

Where each in turn must play his part. 

What scenes from Wilkie's pencil sprung, 
The minstrel saw but left unsung ! 
What shapes the pen of Collins drew, 
No painter clad in living hue ! 

But on our artist's shadowy screen 
A stranger miracle is seen 
Than priest unveils or pilgrim seeks, — 
The poem breathes, the picture speaks ! 

And so his double name comes true, 
They christened better than they knew, 
And Art proclaims him twice her son, — 
Painter and poet, both in one ! 



2oS 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



MEMORIAL VERSES 



FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY 
OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE I, 1 865 
CHORAL: " LUTHER'S JUDGMENT HYMN " 

O Thou of soul and sense and breath 

The ever-present Giver, 
Unto thy mighty Angel, Death, 

All flesh thou dost deliver; 
What most we cherish we resign, 
For life and death alike are thine, 

Who reignest Lord forever ! 

Our hearts lie buried in the dust 
With him so true and tender, 

The patriot's stay, the people's trust, 
The shield of the offender; 

Yet every murmuring voice is still, 

As, bowing to thy sovereign will, 
Our best-loved we surrender. 

Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold 

This martyr generation, 
Which thou, through trials manifold, 

Art showing thy salvation ! 
Oh let the blood by murder spilt 
Wash out thy stricken children's guilt 

And sanctify our nation ! 

Be thou thy orphaned Israel's friend, 
Forsake thy people never, 

In One our broken Many blend, 
That none again may sever ! 

Hear us, O Father, while we raise 

With trembling lips our song of praise, 
And bless thy name forever ! 



FOR THE COMMEMORATION 
SERVICES 

CAMBRIDGE, JULY 21, 1 865 

Four summers coined their golden light in 
leaves, 
Four wasteful autumns flung them to 
the gale, 



Four winters wore the shroud the tempest 
weaves,. 
The fourth wan April weeps o'er hill 
and vale ; 

And still the war-clouds scowl on sea and 
land, 
With the red gleams of battle staining 
through, 
When lo ! as parted by an angel's hand, 
They open, and the heavens again are 
blue! 

Which is the dream, the present or the 
past ? 
The night of anguish or the joyous morn ? 
The long, long years with horrors overcast, 
Or the sweet promise of the day new- 
born ? 

Tell us, O father, as thine arms infold 
Thy belted first-born in their fast em- 
brace, 

Murmuring the prayer the patriarch 
breathed of old, — 

"Now let me die, for I have seen thy 
face ! " 

Tell us, O mother, — nay, thou canst not 
speak, 
But thy fond eyes shall answer, brimmed 
with joy, — 
Press thy mute lips against the sunbrowned 
cheek, 
Is this a phantom, — thy returning boy ? 

Tell us, O maiden, — ah, what canst thou 
tell 
That Nature's record is not first to 
teach, — 
The open volume all can read so well, 
With its twin rose-hued pages full of 
speech ? 

And ye who mourn your dead, — how 

sternly true 
The crushing hour that wrenched their 
lives away, 
Shadowed with sorrow's midnight veil for 

y° u » 

For them the dawning of immortal day J 



FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES 



:og 



Dream-like these years of conflict, not a 
dream ! 
Death, ruin, ashes tell the awful tale, 
Read by the flaming war-track's lurid 
gleam: 
No dream, but truth that turns the na- 
tions pale ! 

For on the pillar raised by martyr hands 
Burns the rekindled beacon of the right, 

Sowing its seeds of fire o'er all the lands, — 
Thrones look a century older in its light ! 

Rome had her triumphs; round the con- 
queror's car 
The ensigns waved, the brazen clarions 
blew, 
And o'er the reeking spoils of bandit war 
With outspread wings the cruel eagles 
flew; 

Arms, treasures, captives, kings in clanking 
chains 
Urged on by trampling cohorts bronzed 
and scarred, 
And wild-eyed wonders snared on Libyan 
plains, 
Lion and ostrich and camelopard. 

Vain all that prsetors clutched, that consuls 
brought 
When Rome's returning legions crowned 
their lord; 
Less than the least brave deed these hands 
have wrought, 
We clasp, miclinching from the bloody 
sword. 

Theirs was the mighty work that seers 
foretold ; 
They know not half their glorious toil 
has won, 
For this is Heaven's same battle, — joined 
of old 
When Athens fought for us at Mara- 
thon ! 

Behold a vision none hath understood ! 

The breaking of the Apocalyptic seal; 
Twice rings the summons. — Hail and fire 
and blood ! 
Then the third angel blows his trumpet- 
peal. 



Loud wail the dwellers on the myrtled 
coasts, 
The green savannas swell the maddened 

And with a yell from all the demon hosts 
Falls the great star called Wormwood 
from the sky ! 

Bitter it mingles with the poisoned flow 

Of the warm rivers winding to the shore, 
Thousands must drink the waves of death 
and woe, 
But the star Wormwood stains the heav- 
ens no more ! 

Peace smiles at last; the Nation calls her 
sons 
To sheathe the sword; her battle-flag 
she furls, 
Speaks in glad thunders from unshotted 
guns, 
No terror shrouded in the smoke-wreath's 
curls. 

O ye that fought for Freedom, living, dead, 
One sacred host of God's anointed Queen, 

For every holy drop your veins have shed 
We breathe a welcome to our bowers of 
green ! 

Welcome, ye living ! from the foeman's 
gripe 
Your country's banner it was yours to 
wrest, — 
Ah, many a forehead shows the banner- 
stripe, 
And stars, once crimson, hallow many a 
breast. 

And ye, pale heroes, who from glory's bed 
Mark when your old battalions form in 
line, 
Move in their marching ranks with noise- 
less tread, 
And shape unheard the evening counter- 
sign, 

Come with your comrades, the returning 
brave ; 
Shoulder to shoulder they await you here ; 
These lent the life their martyr-brothers 
gave, — 
Living and dead alike forever dear ! 



210 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



EDWARD EVERETT 

" OUR FIRST CITIZEN " 

Read at the meeting- of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, January 30, 1865. 

Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his 
breast ; 
For him no spring shall bid the leaf un- 
fold : 
What Love could speak, by sudden grief 
oppressed, 
What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is 
told. 

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, 
Filled with their sweet vibrations all 
the air, 

So joined all voices, in that mournful time, 
His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare. 

What place is left for words of measured 
praise, 
Till calm-eyed History, with her iron 
pen, 
Grooves in the unchanging rock the final 
phrase 
That shapes his image in the souls of 
men ? 

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, 
While countless tongues his full-orbed 
life rehearse, 
Love, by his beating pulses taught, will 
claim 
The breath of song, the tuneful throb of 
verse, — 

Yerse that, in ever- changing ebb and flow, 
Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush 
and rest, 
Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and 
slow, 
Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn 
breast. 

This was a mind so rounded, so complete, 

No partial gift of Nature in excess, 
That, like a single stream where many 
meet, 
Each separate talent counted something 
less. 



A little hillock, if it lonely stand, 

Holds o'er the fields an undisputed 
reign; 
While the broad summit of the table-land 
Seems with its belt of clouds a level 
plain. 

Servant of all his powers, that faithful 
slave, 
Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with 
his toils, 
To every ruder task his shoulder gave, 
And loaded every day with golden spoils. 

Order, the law of Heaven, was throned 
supreme 
O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, 
thought; 
True as the dial's shadow to the beam, 
Each hour was equal to the charge it 
brought. 

Too large his compass for the nicer skill 
That weighs the world of science grain 
by grain; 
All realms of knowledge owned the mas- 
tering will 
That claimed the franchise of its whole 
domain. 

Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, 
Art, history, song, — what meanings lie 
in each 
Found in his cunning hand a striugless lyre, 
And poured their mingling music through 
his speech. 

Thence flowed those anthems of our festal 
days, 
Whose ravishing division held apart 
The lips of listening throngs in sweet 
amaze, 
Moved in all breasts the selfsame human 
heart. 

Subdued his accents, as of one who tries 
To press some care, some haunting sad- 
ness down; 
His smile half shadow; and to stranger 
eyes 
The kingly forehead wore an iron crown. 

He was not armed to wrestle with the 

storm, 



SHAKESPEARE 



211 



To fight for homely truth with vulgar 

power ; 
Grace looked from every feature, shaped 

his form, — 
The rose of Academe, — the perfect 

flower ! 

Such was the stately scholar whom we 
kuew 
Iu those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, 
Before the blast of Northern vengeance 
blew 
Her snow-wreathed pine against the 
Southern palm. 

Ah, God forgive us ! did we hold too cheap 

The heart we might have knowu, but 

would not see, 

And look to find the nation's friend asleep 

Through the dread hour of her Geth- 

semane ? 

That wrong is past ; we gave him up to 
Death 
With all a hero's honors round his name ; 
As mart} r rs coin their blood, he coined his 
breath, 
And dimmed the scholar's in the pa- 
triot's fame. 

So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise, — 

Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn 

years, — 

" He who had lived the mark of all men's 

praise 

Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears." 



SHAKESPEARE 



TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 
APRIL 23, 1864 

" Who claims our Shakespeare from that 
realm unknown, 
Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the 
deep, 
Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown? 
Her twofold Saint's-day let our England 
keep ; 
Shall warring aliens share her holy task ? " 
The Old World echoes ask. 



land of Shakespeare ! ours with all thy 
past, 
Till these last years that make the sea 
so wide, 
Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast 
Has dulled our aching sense to joyous 
pride 
In every noble word thy sons bequeathed 
The air our fathers breathed ! 

War-wasted, haggard, panting from the 
strife, 
We turn to other days and far-off lands, 
Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life, 
Come with fresh lilies in our fevered 
hands 
To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple 
flowers, — 
Not his the need, but ours ! 

We call those poets who are first to mark 
Through earth's dull mist the coming of 
the dawn, — 
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale 
spark, 
While others only note that day is gone; 
For him the Lord of light the curtain rent 
That veils the firmament. 

The greatest for its greatness is half known, 
Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant- 
lines, — 
As in that world of Nature all outgrown 
Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines, 
And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall 
Nevada's cataracts fall. 

Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours, 
Throbbing its radiance like a beating 
heart ; 
In the wide compass of angelic powers 

The instinct of the blind worm has its part ; 
So in God's kingliest creature we behold 
The flower our buds infold. 

With no vain praise we mock the stone- 
carved name 
Stamped once on dust that moved with 
pulse and breath, 
As thinking, to enlarge that amplest fame 
Whose undimmed glories gild the night 
of death: 
We praise not star or sun; in these we see 
Thee, Father, only thee ! 



212 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and 
love : 
We read, we reverence on this human 
soul, — 
Earth's clearest mirror of the light above, — 
Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll, 
When o'er his page the effluent splendors 
poured, 
Thine own " Thus saith the Lord ! " 

This player was a prophet from on high, 
Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, 



For him thy sovereign pleasure passed them 
by; 
Sidney's fair youth, and Raleigh's ripened 
age, 
Spenser's chaste soul, and his imperial 
mind 
Who taught and shamed mankind. 

Therefore we bid our hearts' Te Deum 
rise, 
Nor fear to make thy worship less divine, 
And hear the shouted choral shake the 
skies, 
Counting all glory, power, and wisdom 
thine ; 
For thy great gift thy greater name adore, 
And praise thee evermore ! 

In this dread hour of Nature's utmost 
need, 
Thanks for these unstained drops of 
freshening dew ! 
Oh, while our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed, 
Keep us to every sweet remembrance 
true, 
Till from this blood-red sunset springs new- 
born 
Our Nation's second morn ! 



IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND 
ROBERT WARE 

Read at the annual meeting 1 of the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society, May 25, 1864. 

No mystic charm, no mortal art, 

Can bid our loved companions stay; 
The bands that clasp them to our heart 
Snap in death's frost and fall apart; 
Like shadows fading with the day, 
They pass away. 



The young are stricken in their pride, 

The old, long tottering, faint and fall ; 
Master and scholar, side by side, 
Through the dark portals silent glide, 
That open in life's mouldering wall 
And close on all. 

Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, 
When Mercy called him from on high ; 
A little cloud had dimmed the sun, 
The saddening hours had just begun, 
And darker days were drawing nigh: 
'T was time to die. 

A whiter soul, a fairer mind, 

A life with purer course and aim, 
A gentler eye, a voice more kind, 
We may not look on earth to find. 
The love that lingers o'er his name 
Is more than fame. 

These blood-red summers ripen fast; 

The sons are older than the sires ; 
Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, 
The sapling falls before the blast ; 

Life's ashes keep their covered fires, — 
Its flame expires. 

Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, 

Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell 
Has laid the best and bravest low, 
His boy, all bright in morning's glow, 
That high-soulecl youth he loved so well. 
Untimely fell. 

Yet still he wore his placid smile, 

And, trustful in the cheering creed 
That strives all sorrow to beguile, 
Walked calmly on his way awhile: 

Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed 
Must ever bleed ! 

So they both left us, sire and son, 

With opening leaf, with laden bough: 
The youth whose race was just begun, 
The wearied man whose course was run, 
Its record written on his brow, 
Are brothers now. 

Brothers ! — The music of the sound 

Breathes softly through my closing strain ; 
The floor we tread is holy ground, 
Those gentle spirits hovering round, 
While our fair circle joins again 
Its broken chain. 



HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY 



213 



HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY 

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 
14, 1869 

BONAPARTE, AUGUST 15, 1769. — HUMBOLDT, 
SEPTEMBER 14, 1 769 

Ere yet the warning chimes of midnight 
sound, 
Set back the flaming index of the year, 
Track the swift-shifting seasons in their 
round 
Through fivescore circles of the swinging 
sphere ! 

Lo, in yon islet of the midland sea 

That cleaves the storm-cloud with its 
snowy crest, 
The embryo-heir of Empires yet to be, 
A month-old babe upon his mother's 
breast. 

Those little hands that soon shall grow so 
strong 
In their rude grasp great thrones shall 
rock and fall, 
Press her soft bosom, while a nursery song 
Holds the world's master in its slender 
thrall. 

Look ! a new crescent bends its silver bow; 

A new-lit star has fired the eastern sky; 
Hark ! by the river where the lindens blow 

A waiting household hears an infant's cry. 

This, too, a conqueror ! His the vast do- 
main, 
Wider than widest sceptre - shadowed 
lands ; 
Earth and the weltering kingdom of the 
main 
Laid their broad charters in his royal 
hands. 

His was no taper lit in cloistered cage, 
Its glimmer borrowed from the grove or 
porch ; 

He read the record of the planet's page 
By Etna's glare and Cotopaxi's torch. 

He heard the voices of the pathless woods; 
On the salt steppes he saw the starlight 
shine ; 



He scaled the mountain's windy solitudes, 
And trod the galleries of the breathless 
mine. 

For him no fingering of the love-strung 
lyre, 
No problem vague, by torturing school- 
men vexed; 
He fed no broken altar's dying fire, 

Nor skulked and scowled behind a 
Rabbi's text. 

For God's new truth he claimed the kingly 
robe 
That priestly shoulders counted all their 
own, 
Unrolled the gospel of the storied globe 
And led young Science to her empty 
throne. 

While the round planet on its axle spins 
One fruitful year shall boast its double 
birth, 

And show the cradles of its mighty twins, 
Master and Servant of the sons of earth. 

Which wears the garland that shall never 
fade, 
Sweet with fair memories that can never 
die? 
Ask not the marbles where their bones are 
laid, 
But bow thine ear to hear thy brothers' 
cry: — 

" Tear up the despot's laurels by the root, 
Like mandrakes, shrieking as they quit 
the soil ! 
Feed us no more upon the blood-red fruit 
That sucks its crimson from the heart of 
Toil! 

" We claim the food that fixed our mortal 
fate, — 
Bend to our reach the long-forbidden 
tree ! 
The angel frowned at Eden's eastern 
gate, — 
Its western portal is forever free ! 

" Bring the white blossoms of the waning 
year, 
Heap with full hands the peaceful con- 
queror's shrine 



214 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



Whose bloodless triumphs cost no sufferer's 


And all the tuneful throats of summer 


tear ! 


swell 


Hero of knowledge, be our tribute 


With trills as crystal-clear 


thine ! " 


As when he wooed the ear 




Of the young muse that haunts each 


POEM 


wooded dell, 




With songs of that " rough land " he loved 


AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HALLECK 


so long and well ! 


MONUMENT, JULY 8, 1 869 






He sleeps; he cannot die ! 


Say not the Poet dies ! 


As evening's long-drawn sigh, 


Though in the dust he lies, 


Lifting the rose-leaves on his peaceful 


He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, 


mound, 


Unsphered by envious death ! 


Spreads all their sweets around, 


Life drops the voiceless myriads from its 


So, laden with his song, the breezes blow 


roll; 


From where the rustling sedge 


Their fate he cannot share, 


Frets our rude ocean's edge 


Who, in the enchauted air 


To the smooth sea beyond the peaks of 


Sweet with the lingering strains that 


snow. 


Echo stole, 


His soul the air enshrines and leaves but 


Has left his dearer self, the music of his 
soul ! 


dust below ! 


We o'er his turf may raise 


HYMN 


Our notes of feeble praise, 




And carve with pious care for after eyes 


FOR THE CELEBRATION AT THE LAYING 


The stone with " Here he lies; " 


OF THE CORNER-STONE OF HARVARD 


He for himself has built a nobler shrine, 


MEMORIAL HALL, CAMBRIDGE, OCTO- 


Whose walls of stately rhyme 


BER 6, 1870 


Roll back the tides of time, 




While o'er their gates the gleaming tab- 


Not with the anguish of hearts that are 


lets shine 


breaking 


That wear his name inwrought with many 


Come we as mourners to weep for our 


a golden line ! 


dead; 




Grief in our breasts has grown weary of 


Call not our Poet dead, 


aching, 


Though on his turf we tread ! 


Green is the turf where our tears we 


Green is the wreath their brows so long 


have shed. 


have worn, — 




The minstrels of the morn, 


While o'er their marbles the mosses are 


Who, while the Orient burned with new- 


creeping, 


born flame, 


Stealing each name and its legend away, 


Caught that celestial fire 


Give their proud story to Memory's keep- 


And struck a Nation's lyre ! 


in g> 


These taught the western winds the 


Shrined in the temple we hallow to-day. 


poet's name; 




Theirs the first opening buds, the maiden 


Hushed are their battle-fields, ended their 


flowers of fame ! 


marches, 




Deaf are their ears to the drum-beat of 


Count not our Poet dead ! 


morn, — 


The stars shall watch his bed, 


Rise from the sod, ye fair columns and 


The rose of June its fragrant life re- 


arches ! 


new 


Tell their bright deeds to the ages un- 


His blushing mound to strew, 


born ! 



AN IMPROMPTU 



21 5 



Emblem and legend may fade from the 
portal, 
Kevstone may crumble and pillar may 
" fall; 
They were the builders whose work is im- 
mortal, 
Crowned with the dome that is over us 
all! 

HYMN 

FOR THE DEDICATION OF MEMORIAL HALL 
AT CAMBRIDGE, JUNE 23, 1 874 

Where, girt around by savage foes, 
Our nurturing Mother's shelter rose, 
Behold, the lofty temple stands, 
Reared by her children's grateful hands ! 

Firm are the pillars that defy 
The volleyed thunders of the sky; 
Ssveet are the summer wreaths that twine 
"With bud and flower our martyrs' shrine. 

The hues their tattered colors bore 
Fall mingling on the sunlit floor 
Till evening spreads her spaugled pall, 
And wraps in shade the storied hall. 

Firm were their hearts in danger's hour, 
Sweet was their manhood's morning flower, 
Their hopes with rainbow hues were 

bright, — 
How swiftly winged the sudden night ! 

Mother ! on thy marble page 
Thy children read, from age to age, 
The mighty word that upward leads 
Through noble thought to nobler deeds. 



Truth, heaven-born Truth, their fearless 

guide, 
Thy saints have lived, thy heroes died; 
Our love has reared their earthly shrine, 
Their glory be forever thine ! 



HYMN 

AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF CHARLES 
SUMNER, APRIL 29, 1 874 

SUNG BY MALE VOICES TO A NATIONAL AIR 
OF HOLLAND 

Once more, ye sacred towers, 

Your solemn dirges sound: 
Strew, loving hands, the April flowers, 

Once more to deck his mound. 

A nation mourns its dead, 

Its sorrowing voices one, 
As Israel's monarch bowed his head 

And cried, " My son ! My son ! " 

Why mourn for him ? — For him 

The welcome angel came 
Ere yet his eye with age was dim 

Or bent his stately frame; 

His weapon still was bright, 

His shield was lifted high 
To slay the wrong, to save the right, — 

What happier hour to die ? 

Thou orderest all things well; 

Thy servant's work was done; 
He lived to hear Oppression's knell, 

The shouts for Freedom won. 

Hark ! from the opening skies 

The anthem's echoing swell, — 
" O mourning Land, lift up thine eyes ! 

God reisiieth. All is well ! " 



RHYMES OF AN HOUR 



AN IMPROMPTU 

AT THE WALCKER DINNER UPON THE 
COMPLETION OF THE GREAT ORGAN 
FOR BOSTON MUSIC HALL IN 1 863 

I asked three little maidens w r ho heard the 

organ play, 
Where all the music came from that stole 

our hearts away: 



" I know," — said fair-haired Edith, — " it 

w r as the autumn breeze 
That whistled through the hollows of all 

those silver trees." 

" No, child ! " — said keen-eyed Clara, — 

" it is a lion's cage, — 
They woke him out of slumber, — I heard 

him roar and rage." 



2l6 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



" Nay," — answered soft-voiced Anna, — 
"'t was thunder that you heard, 

And after that came sunshine and singing 
of a bird." 

" Hush, hush, you little children, for all of 

you are wrong," 
I said, " my pretty darlings, — it was no 

earthly song; 
A band of blessed angels has left the 

heavenly choirs, 
And what you heard last evening were 

seraph lips and lyres ! " 



ADDRESS 

FOR THE OPENING OF THE FIFTH AV- 
ENUE THEATRE, NEW YORK, DECEM- 
BER 3, 1873 

Hang out our banners on the stately 

tower ! 
It dawns at last — the long-expected hour ! 
The steep is climbed, the star-lit summit 

won, 
The builder's task, the artist's labor done; 
Before the finished work the herald stands, 
And asks the verdict of your lips and 

hands ! 

Shall rosy daybreak make us all forget 

The golden sun that yester-evening set ? 

Fair was the fabric doomed to pass away 

Ere the last headaches born of New Year's 
Day; 

With blasting breath the fierce destroyer 
came 

And wrapped the victim in his robes of 
flame; 

The pictured sky with redder morning 
blushed, 

With scorching streams the naiad's foun- 
tain gushed, 

With kindling mountains glowed the fune- 
ral pyre, 

Forests ablaze and rivers all on fire, — 

The scenes dissolved, the shriveling curtain 
fell, — 

Art spread her wings and sighed a long 
farewell ! 

Mourn o'er the Player's melancholy 
plight, — 
Falstaff in tears, Othello deadly white, — 



Poor Romeo reckoning what his doublet 

cost, 
And Juliet whimpering for her dresses 

lost, — 
Their wardrobes burned, their salaries all 

undrawn, 
Their cues cut short, their occupation 

gone ! 

" Lie there in dust," the red-winged de- 
mon cried, 
"Wreck of the lordly city's hope and 

pride ! " 
Silent they stand, and stare with vacant 

gaze, 
While o'er the embers leaps the fitful 

blaze ; 
When, lo ! a hand, before the startled 

train, 
Writes in the ashes, " It shall rise again, — 
Rise and confront its elemental foes ! " 
The word was spoken, and the walls arose, 
And ere the seasons round their brief ca- 
reer 
The new-born temple waits the unborn 
year. 

Ours was the toil of many a weary day 
Your smiles, your plaudits, only can repay; 
We are the monarchs of the painted 

scenes, 
You, you alone the real Kings and Queens ! 
Lords of the little kingdom where we 

meet, 
We lay our gilded sceptres at your feet, 
Place in your grasp our portal's silvered 

keys 
With one brief utterance: We have tried 

to please. 
Tell us, ye sovereigns of the new domain, 
Are you content — or have we toiled in 

vain ? 

With no irreverent glances look around 
The realm you rule, for this is haunted 

ground ! 
Here stalks. the Sorcerer, here the Fairy 

trips, 
Here limps the Witch with malice-work- 
ing lips, 
The Graces here their snowy arms entwine, 
Here dwell the fairest sisters of the 

Nine, — 
She who, with jocund voice and twinkling 
eye, 



OPENING OF THE FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE 



217 



Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly; 
She of the dagger and the deadly bowl, 
"Whose charming horrors thrill the trem- 
bling soul ; 
She who, a truant from celestial spheres, 
I11 mortal semblance now and then appears, 
Stealing the fairest earthly shape she 

can — 
Sontag or Nilsson, Lind or Malibran; 
"With these the spangled houri of the 

dance, — 
"What shaft so dangerous as her melting 

glance, 
As poised in air she spurns the earth below, 
And points aloft her heavenly-minded toe! 

"What were our life, with all its rents and 

seams, 
Stripped of its purple robes, our waking 

dreams ? 
The poet's song, the bright romancer's page, 
The tinselled shows that cheat us on the 

stage 
Lead all our fancies captive at their will; 
Three years or threescore, we are children 

still. 
The little listener on his father's knee, 
With wandering Sindbad ploughs the 

stormy sea, 
"With Gotham's sages hears the billows roll 
(Illustrious trio of the venturous bowl, 
Too early shipwrecked, for they died too 

soon 
To see their offspring launch the great 

balloon) ; 
Tracks the dark brigand to his mountain 

lair, 
Slays the grim giant, saves the lady fair, 
Fights all his country's battles o'er again 
From Bunker's blazing height to Lundy's 

Lane ; 
Floats with the mighty captains as they 

sailed, 
Before whose flag the flaming red-cross 

paled, 
And claims the oft-told story of the scars 
Scarce yet grown white, that saved the 

stripes and stars ! 

Children of later growth, we love the 

Play, 
"We love its heroes, be they grave or gay, 
From squeaking, pepperv, devil-defying 

Punch 



To roaring Richard with his camel-hunch ; 
Adore its heroines, those immortal dames, 
Time's only rivals, whom he never tames, 
"Whose youth, unchanging, lives while 

thrones decay 
(Age spares the Pyramids — and Dejazet) ; 
The saucy - aproned, razor - tongued sou- 

brette, 
The blond-haired beauty with the eyes of 

jet, 
The gorgeous Beings whom the viewless 

wires 
Lift to the skies in strontian-crimsoned 

fires, 
And all the wealth of splendor that awaits 
The throng that enters those Elysian gates. 

See where the hurrying crowd impatient 
pours, 

With noise of trampling feet and flapping 
doors, 

Streams to the numbered seat each paste- 
board fits 

And smooths its caudal plumage as it sits ; 

"Waits while the slow musicians saunter 
in, 

Till the bald leader taps his violin; 

Till the old overture we know so well, 

Zampa or Magic Flute or "William Tell, 

Has done its worst — then hark ! the 
tinkling bell ! 

The crash is o'er — the crinkling curtain 
furled, 

And lo ! the glories of that brighter world ! 

Behold the offspring of the Thespian 

cart, 
This full-grown temple of the magic art, 
Where all the conjurers of illusion meet, 
And please us all the more, the more they 

cheat. 
These are the wizards and the witches too 
Who win their honest bread by cheating 

you 
With cheeks that drown in artificial tears 
And lying skull-caps white with seventy 

years, 
Sweet-tempered matrons changed to scold- 
ing Kates, 
Maids mild as moonbeams crazed with 

murderous hates, 
Kind, simple souls that stab and slash and 

slay 
And stick at nothing, if it 's in the play ! 



2li 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



Would all the world told half as harm- 
less lies ! 
Would all its real fools were half as wise 
As he who blinks through dull Dundreary's 

eyes ! 
Would all the unhanged bandits of the age 
Were like the peaceful ruffians of the 

stage ! 
Would all the cankers wasting town and 

state, 
The mob of rascals, little thieves and 

great, 
Dealers in watered milk and watered 

stocks, 
Who lead us lambs to pasture on the 

rocks, — 
Shepherds — Jack Sheppards — of their 

city flocks, — 
The rings of rogues that rob the luckless 

town, 
Those evil angels creeping up and down 
The Jacob's ladder of the treasury stairs, — 
Not stage, but real Turpins and Ma- 

caires, — 
Could doff, like us } their knavery with 

their clothes, 
And find it easy as forgetting oaths ! 

Welcome, thrice welcome to our virgin 
dome, 
The Muses' shrine, the Drama's new-found 

home ! 
Here shall the Statesman rest his weary 

brain, 
The worn-out Artist find his wits again; 
Here Trade forget his ledger and his cares, 
And sweet communion mingle Bulls and 

Bears; 
Here shall the youthful Lover, nestling- 
near 
The shrinking maiden, her he holds most 

dear, 
Gaze on the mimic moonlight as it falls 
On painted groves, on sliding canvas walls, 
And sigh, " My angel ! What a life of 

bliss 
We two could live in such a world as 

this ! " 
Here shall the timid pedants of the schools, 
The gilded boors, the labor-scorning fools, 
The grass-green rustic and the smoke- 
dried cit, 
Feel each in turn the stinging lash of wit, 
And as it tingles on some tender part 
Each find a balsam in his neighbor's smart; 



So every folly prove a fresh delight 
As in the picture of our play to-night. 

Farewell ! The Players wait the Prompt- 
er's call; 
Friends, lovers, listeners ! Welcome one 
and all ! 



A SEA DIALOGUE 

NOVEMBER 10, 1 864 

Cabin Passenger Man at Wheel 

CABIN PASSENGER 

Friend, you seem thoughtful. I not won- 
der much 

That he who sails the ocean should be sad. 

I am myself reflective. When I think 

Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has 
sucked 

Between his sharp thin lips, the wedgy 
waves, 

What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, 
pearls; 

What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, 
crowns, 

What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian 
shawls, 

Of laces that have blanked the weavers' 
eyes, t 

Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and 
man, 

The half-starved workman, and the well- 
fed worm; 

What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parch- 
ments, books; 

What many-lobuled, thought-engendering 
brains ; 

Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his 
maw, — 

I, too, am silent; for all language seems 

A mockery, and the speech of man is vain. 

O mariner, we look upon the waves 

And they rebuke our babbling. " Peace! " 
they say, — 

" Mortal, be still ! " My noisy tongue is 
hushed, 

And with my trembling finger on my lips 

My soul exclaims in ecstasy — 



MAN AT WHEEL 



Belay ! 



a sp:a dialogue 



219 



CABIN PASSENGER 

All yes! " Delay," — it calls, " nor haste to 

break 
The charm of stillness with an idle word! " 
O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought 
Strides even with my own, nay, flies be- 
fore. 
Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; 
Have they not music for thine ear as 

mine, 
When the wild tempest makes thy ship his 

lyre, 
Smiting a cavernous basso from the 

shrouds 
And climbing up his gamut through the 

stays, 
Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till 

it shrills 
An alto keener than the locust sings, 
And all the great JEolian orchestra 
Storms out its mad sonata in the gale ? 
Is not the scene a wondrous and — 



MAN AT WHEEL 



CABIN PASSENGER 



Avast ! 



Ah yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene ! 
I see thy soul is open as the day 
That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl 
To all the solemn glories of the deep. 
Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel 
The grandeur of thine office, — to control 
The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife 
And leaves a wake behind it like a seam 
In the great shining garment of the world ? 

MAN AT WHEEL 

Belay y'r jaw, y' swab ! y' hoss-marine ! 

(To the Captain?) 
Ay, ay, Sir ! Stiddy, Sir ! Sou'wes' b'sou' ! 



CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC 

BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF DEAD 
AND LIVE LANGUAGES 

PHI EETA KAPPA. — CAMBRIDGE, 1867 

You bid me sing, — can I forget 
The classic ode of days gone by, — 



How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette 
Exclaimed, " Anacreon, geron ei " ? 

" Regardez done," those ladies said, — 
" You 're getting bald and wrinkled too: 

When summer's roses all are shed, 
Love 's nullum ite, voyez-vous ! " 

In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry, 

" Of Love alone my banjo sings " 
(Erota mounon). " Etiam si, — 

Eh b'en ? " replied the saucy things, — 
" Go find a maid whose hair is gray, 

And strike your lyre, — we sha'n't com- 
plain : 
But parce nobis, s'il vous plait, — 

Voila Adolphe ! Voila. Eugene ! " 

Ah, jeune Lisette ! Ah, belle Fifine ! 
Anacreon's lesson all must learn; 

kairos oxus; Spring is green, 
But Acer Hyems waits his turn ! 

1 hear you whispering from the dust, 

" Tiens, mon cher, e'est toujours so, — 
The brightest blade grows dim with rust, 
The fairest meadow white with snow ! " 

You do not mean it ! Not encore ? 

Another string of playday rhymes ? 
You 've heard me — nonne est ? — before, 

Multoties, — more than twenty times; 
Non possum, — vraiment, — pas du tout, 

I cannot ! I am loath to shirk; 
But who will listen if I do, 

My memory makes such shocking work ? 

Ginosko. Scio. Yes, I 'm told 

Some ancients like my rusty lay, 
As Grandpa Noah loved the old 

Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day. 
I used to carol like the birds, 

But time my wits has quite unfixed, 
Et quoad verba, — for my words, — 

Ciel ! Eheu ! Whe-ew ! — how they 're 
mixed ! 

Meherele ! Zeu ! Diable ! how 

My thoughts were dressed when I was 
young, 
But tern pus fngit ! see them now 

Half clad in rags of every tongue ! 
O philoi, fratres, chers amis ! 

I dare not court the youthful Muse, 
For fear her sharp response should be, 

" Papa Anacreon, please excuse ! " 



220 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



Adieu ! I 've trod my annual track 

How long ! — let others count the miles,- 
And peddled out my rhyming pack 

To friends who always paid in smiles. 
So, laissez-moi ! some youthful wit 

No doubt has wares he wants to show; 
And I am asking, " Let me sit," 

Dum ille clamat. " Dos pou sto ! " 



FOR THE CENTENNIAL DINNER 

OF THE PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER, 
OR THE LONG WHARF, APRIL l6, 1 873 

Dear friends, we are strangers ; we never 
before 

Have suspected what love to each other we 
bore; 

But each of us all to his neighbor is dear, 

Whose heart has a throb for our time- 
honored pier. 

As I look on each brother proprietor's 
face, 

I could open my arms in a loving em- 
brace ; 

What wonder that feelings, undreamed of 
so long, 

Should burst all at once in a blossom of 
song ! 

While I turn my fond glance on the mon- 
arch of piers, 

Whose throne has stood firm through his 
eightscore of years, 

My thought travels backward and reaches 
the day 

When they drove the first pile on the edge 
of the bay. 

See ! The joiner, the shipwright, the smith 

from his forge, 
The redcoat, who shoulders his gun for 

King George, 
The shopman, the 'prentice, the boys from 

the lane, 
The parson, the doctor with gold-headed 

cane, 

Come trooping down King Street, where 
now may be seen 

The pulleys and ropes of a mighty ma- 
chine; 



The weight rises slowly; it drops with 

thud; 
And, lo ! the great timber sinks deep ii 

the mud ! 

They are gone, the stout craftsmen that 
hammered the piles, 

And the square-toed old boys in the three- 
cornered tiles; 

The breeches, the buckles, have fadec 
from view, 

And the parson's white wig and the ribbon- 
tied queue. 

The redcoats have vanished; the last gren- 
adier 

Stepped into the boat from the end of our 
pier; 

They found that our hills were not easy to 
climb, 

And the order came, " Countermarch, 
double-quick time ! " 

They are gone, friend and foe, — anchored 

fast at the pier, 
Whence no vessel brings back its pale 

passengers here; 
But our wharf, like a lily, still floats on the 

flood, 
Its breast in the sunshine, its roots in the 

mud. 

Who — who that has loved it so long and 

so well — 
The flower of his birthright would barter 

or sell ? 
No: pride of the bay, while its ripples shall 

run, 
You shall pass, as an heirloom, from father 

to son ! 

Let me part with the acres my grandfather 
bought, 

With the bonds that my uncle's kind leg- 
acy brought, 

With my bank - shares, — old " Union," 
whose ten per cent stock 

Stands stiff through the storms as the Ed- 
dystone rock; 

With my rights (or my wrongs) in the 

"Erie,"— alas ! 
With my claims on the mournful and 

"Mutual Mass.;" 



A POEM SERVED TO ORDER 



221 



With my " Phil. Wil. and Bait.," with my 
"C.B.andQ.;" 

But I never, no never, will sell out of 
you. 

We drink to thy past and thy future to- 
day, 

Strong right arm of Boston, stretched out 
o'er the bay. 

May the winds waft the wealth of all na- 
tions to thee, 

And thy dividends flow like the waves of 
the sea ! 



A POEM SERVED TO ORDER 

PHI BETA KAPPA, JUNE 26, 1 873 

The Caliph ordered up his cook, 
And, scowling with a fearful look 

That meant, — We stand no gammon, - 
"To-morrow, just at two," he said, 
" Hassan, our cook, will lose his head, 

Or serve us up a salmon." 

* Great sire," the trembling chef replied, 
" Lord of the Earth and all beside, 

Sun, Moon, and Stars, and so on " — 
(Look in Eothen, — there you '11 find 
A list of titles. Nevermind; 

I have n't time to go on:) 

" Great sire," and so forth, thus he spoke, 
" Your Highness must intend a joke; 

It does n't stand to reason 
For one to order salmon brought, 
Unless that fish is sometimes caught, 

And also is in season. 

" Our luck of late is shocking bad, 
In fact, the latest catch we had 

(We kept the matter shady), 
But, hauling in our nets, — alack ! 
We found no salmon , but a sack 

That held your honored Lady ! " 

"Allah is great ! " the Caliph said, 
" My poor Zuleika, you are dead, 

I once took interest in you." 
" Perhaps, my Lord, you 'd like to know 
We cut the lines and let her go." 

" Allah be praised ! Continue." 



" It is n't hard one's hook to bait, 

And, squatting down, to watch and wait, 

To see the cork go under; 
At last suppose you 've got your bite, 
You twitch away with all your might, — 

You 've hooked an eel, by thunder ! " 

The Caliph patted Hassan's head : 

" Slave, thou hast spoken well," he said, 

" And won thy master's favor. 
Yes; since what happened t' other morn 
The salmon of the Golden Horn 

Might have a doubtful flavor. 

" That last remark about the eel 
Has also justice that we feel 

Quite to our satisfaction. 
To-morrow we dispense with fish, 
And, for the present, if you wish, 

You '11 keep your bulbous fraction." 

" Thanks ! thanks ! " the grateful chef re- 
plied, 
His nutrient feature showing wide 

The gleam of arches dental: 
" To cut my head off would n't pay, 
I find it useful every day, 

As well as ornamental." 



Brothers, I hope you will not fail 
To see the moral of my tale 

And kindly to receive it. 
You know your anniversary pie 
Must have its crust, though hard and 
dry, 

And some prefer to leave it. 

How oft before these youths were born 
I 've fished in Fancy's Golden Horn 

For what the Muse might send me ! 
How gayly then I cast the line, 
When all the morning sky was mine, 

And Hope her flies would lend me ! 

And now I hear our despot's call, 
And come, like Hassan, to the hall, — 

If there 's a slave, I am one, — 
My bait no longer flies, but worms ! 
I 've caught — Lord bless me ! how he 
squirms ! 

An eel, and not a salmon ! 



222 



SONGS OF MANY SEASONS 



THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

READ AT THE MEETING OF THE HAR- 
VARD ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, JUNE 25, 
1873 

The fount the Spaniard sought in vain 

Through all the land of flowers 
Leaps glittering from the sandy plain 

Our classic grove embowers; 
Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles, 

Here dwells eternal spring, 
And warm from Hope's elysian isles 

The winds their perfume bring. 

Here every leaf is in the bud, 

Each singing throat in tune, 
And bright o'er evening's silver flood 

Shines the young crescent moon. 
What wonder Age forgets his staff 

And lays his glasses down 
And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh 

As when their locks were brown ! 

With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim 

They greet the joyous day 
That calls them to the fountain's brim 

To wash their years away. 
What change has clothed the ancient sire 

In sudden youth ? For, lo ! 
The Judge, the Doctor, and the Squire 

Are Jack and Bill and Joe ! 

And be his titles what they will, 

In spite of manhood's claim 
The graybeard is a school-boy still 

And loves his school-boy name ; 
It calms the ruler's stormy breast 

Whom hurrying care pursues, 
And brings a sense of peace and rest, 

Like slippers after shoes. 

And what are all the prizes won 

To youth's enchanted view ? 
And what is all the man has done 

To what the boy may do ? 

blessed fount, whose waters flow 
Alike for sire and son, 

Tha 4 melts our winter's frost and snow 
And makes all ages one ! 

1 pledge the sparkling fountain's tide, 
That flings its golden shower 

With age to fill and youth to guide, 
Still fresh in morning flower ! 



Flow on with ev -widening stream, 
In ever-bri' iening morn, — 

Our story's pude, our future's dream, 
The hope of times unborn ! 



NO TIME LIKE THE OLD TIME 

1865 

There is no time like the old time, when 

you and I were young, 
When the buds of April blossomed, and the 

birds of spring-time sung ! 
The garden's brightest glories by summer 

suns are nursed, 
But oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers 

that opened first ! 

There is no place like the old place, where 

you and I were born, 
Where we lifted first our eyelids on the 

splendors of the morn 
From the milk-white breast that warmed 

us, from the clinging arms that bore, 
Where the dear eyes glistened o'er us that 

will look on us no more ! 

There is no friend like the old friend, who 

has shared our morning days, 
No greeting like his welcome, no homage 

like his praise: 
Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy 

crown of gold; 
But friendship is the breathing rose, with 

sweets in every fold. 

There is no love like the old love, that we 

courted in our pride; 
Though our leaves are falling, falling, and 

we 're fading side by side, 
There are blossoms all around us with the 

colors of our dawn, 
And we live in borrowed sunshine when the 

day-star is withdrawn. 

There are no times like the old times, — 

they shall never be forgot ! 
There is no place like the old place, — keep 

green the dear old spot ! 
There are no friends like our old friends, — 

may Heaven prolong their lives ! 
There are no loves like our old loves, — 

God bless our loving wives ! 



A HYMN OF PEACE 



A HYMN Ox' PEACE 

SUNG AT THE "JUBILEE," JUNE 1 5, 1S69, 
TO THE MUSIC OF KELLER S " AMERI- 
CAN HYMX "' 

Angel of Peace, thou hast wandered too 
long ! 
Spread thy white wings to the sunshine 
of love ! 
Come while our voices are blended in 
song, — 
Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten 
dove ! 
Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove, — 
Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of 
song }> 
Crowned with thine olive-leaf garland of 
love. — 
Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too loug! 

Joyous we meet, on this altar of thine 
Mingling the gifts we have gathered for 
thee, 



Sweet with the odors of myrtle and pine, 
Breeze of the prairie and breath of the 
sea, — 
Meadow and mountain and forest and 
sea ! 
Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and 
pine, 
Sweeter the incense we offer to thee, 

Brothers, once more round this altar of 
thine ! 

Angels of Bethlehem, answer the strain ! 
Hark ! a new birth-song is filling the 
sky ! — 
Loud as the storm-wind that tumbles the 
main 
Bid the full breath of the organ re- 

p!y> — 

Let the loud tempest of voices reply, — 
Boll its long surge like the earth-shaking 
main ! 
Swell the vast song till it mounts to the 
sky ! — 
Angels of Bethlehem, echo the strain ! 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 

1874-1877 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF 
BUNKER-HILL BATTLE 

AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY 

The story of Bunker Hill battle is told as 
literally in accordance with the best authorities 
as it would have been if it had been written in 
prose instead of in verse. I have often been 
asked what steeple it was from which the little 
group I speak of looked upon the conflict. To 
this I answer that I am not prepared to speak au- 
thoritatively, but that the reader may take his 
choice among all the steeples standing at that 
time in the northern part of the city. Christ 
Church in Salem Street is the one I always 
think of, but I do not insist upon its claim. 
As to the personages who made up the small 
company that followed the old corporal, it 
would be hard to identify them, but by ascer- 
taining where the portrait by Copley is now to 
be found, some light may be thrown on their 
personality. 

Daniel Malcolm's gravestone, splintered by 
British bullets, may be seen in the Copp's 
Hill burial-ground. 

'Tis like stirring living embers when, at 

eighty, one remembers 
All the achings and the quakings of " the 

times that tried men's souls ; " 
When I talk of Whig and Torj/, when I 

tell the Rebel* story, 
To you the words are ashes, but to me 

they 're burning coals. 

I had heard the muskets' rattle of the 

April running battle ; 
Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see 

their red coats still; 
But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the 

day looms up before me, 
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the 

slopes of Bunker's Hill. I 



'T was a peaceful summer's morning, 
when the first thing gave us warn- 
ing 

Was the booming of the cannon from the 
river and the shore: 

" Child," says grandma, " what 's the mat- 
ter, what is all this noise and clat- 
ter ? 

Have those scalping Indian devils come to 
murder us once more ? " 

Poor old soul ! my sides were shaking in 

the midst of all my quaking, 
To hear her talk of Indians when the guns 

began to roar: 
She had seen the burning village, and the 

slaughter and the pillage, 
When the Mohawks killed her father with 

their bullets through his door. 

Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't 

you fret and worry any, 
For I'll soon come back and tell you 

whether this is work or play; 
There can't be mischief in it, so I won't 

be gone a minute " — 
For a minute then I started. I was gone 

the livelong day. 

No time for bodice-lacing or for looking- 
glass grimacing; 

Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling 
half-way to my heels; 

God forbid your ever knowing, when 
there 's blood around her flowing, 

How the lonely, helpless daughter of a 
quiet household feels ! 

In the street I heard a thumping; and I 

knew it was the stumping 
Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that 

wooden leg he wore, 



224 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE 225 



With a knot of women round him, — it was 
lucky I had found him, 

So I followed with the others, and the Cor- 
poral marched before. 

They were making for the steeple, — the 

old soldier and his people; 
The pigeons circled round us as we climbed 



the creaking stair. 



oh, so close 



Just across the narrow river 

it made me shiver ! — 
Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but 

yesterday was bare. 

Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew 

who stood behind it, 
Though the earthwork hid them from us, 

and the stubborn walls were dumb: 
Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking 

wild upon each other, 
And their lips were white with terror as 

they said, The hour has come ! 

The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel 

had we tasted, 
And onr heads were almost splitting with 

the cannons' deafening thrill, 
When a figure tall and stately round the 

rampart strode sedately; 
It was Pkescott, one since told me; he 

commanded on the hill. 

Every woman's heart grew bigger when 
we saw his manly figure, 

With the banyan buckled round it, stand- 
ing up so straight and tall; 

Like a gentleman of leisure who is stroll- 
ing out for pleasure, 

Through the storm of shells and cannon- 
shot he walked around the wall. 

At eleven the streets were swarming, for 

the redcoats' ranks were forming; 
At noon in marching order they were 

moving to the piers; 
How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, 

as we looked far down, and listened 
To the trampling and the drum-beat of the 

belted grenadiers ! 

At length the men have started, with a 
cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), 

In their scarlet regimentals, with their 
knapsacks on their backs, 



And the reddening, rippling water, as after 

a sea-fight's slaughter, 
Round the barges gliding onward blushed 

like blood along their tracks. 

So they crossed to the other border, and 

again they formed in order; 
And the boats came back for soldiers, came 

for soldiers, soldiers still: 
The time seemed everlasting to us women 

faint and fasting, — 
At last they 're moving, marching, marching 

proudly up the hill. 

We can see the bright steel glancing all 

along the lines advancing, — 
Now the front rank fires a volley, — they 

have thrown away their shot; 
For behind their earthwork lying, all the 

balls above them flying, 
Our people need not hurry; so they wait 

and answer not. 

Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would 

swear sometimes and tipple), — 
He had heard the bullets whistle (in the 

old French war) before, — 
Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they 

all were hearing, — 
And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the 

dusty belfry floor : — 

" Oh ! fire away, ye villains, and earn King- 
George's shillin's, 

But ye '11 waste a ton of powder afore a 
'rebel 'falls; 

You may bang the dirt and welcome, they 're 
as safe as Dan'l Malcolm 

Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you 've 
splintered with your balls ! " 

In the hush of expectation, in the awe and 

trepidation 
Of the dread approaching moment, we are 

well-nigh breathless all; 
Though the rotten bars are failing on the 

rickety belfry railing, 
We are crowding up against them like the 

waves against a wall. 

Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are 
nearer, — nearer, — nearer, 

When a flash — a curling smoke-wreath — 
then a crasli — the steeple shakes — 



226 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



The deadly truce is ended: 
shroud is reuded; 



the tempest's 



Like a morning mist it gathered, like a 
thundercloud it breaks ! 

Oh the sight our eyes discover as the blue- 
black smoke blows over ! 

The red-coats stretched in windrows as a 
mower rakes his hay; 

Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a head- 
long crowd is flying 

Like a billow that has broken and is shiv- 
ered into spray. 

Then we cried, " The troops are routed ! 

they are beat — it can't be doubted ! 
God be thanked, the fight is over ! " — Ah ! 

the grim old soldier's smile ! 
" Tell us, tell us why you look so ? " (we 

could hardly speak, we shook so), — 
" Are they beaten ? Are they beaten ? 

Are they beaten ? " — " Wait a 

while." 

Oh the trembling and the terror ! for too 

soon we saw our error: 
They are baffled, not defeated; we have 

driven them back in vain ; 
And the columns that were scattered, round 

the colors that were tattered, 
Toward the sullen, silent fortress turn their 

belted breasts again. 

All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs 

of Charlestown blazing ! 
They have fired the harmless village ; in an 

hour it will be down ! 
The Lord in heaven confound them, rain 

his fire and brimstone round them, — 
The robbing, murdering red-coats, that 

would burn a peaceful town ! 

They are marching, stern and solemn; we 

can see each massive column 
As they near the naked earth-mound with 

the slanting walls so steep. 
Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in 

noiseless haste departed? 
Are they panic-struck and helpless ? Are 

they palsied or asleep ? 

Now ! the walls they 're almost under ! 

scarce a rod the foes asunder ! 
Not a firelock flashed against them ! up 

the earthwork they will swarm ! 



But the words have scarce been spoken, 
when the ominous calm is broken, 

And a bellowing crash has emptied all the 
vengeance of the storm ! 

So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted 

backwards to the water, 
Fly Pigot's running heroes and the 

frightened braves of Howe; 
And we shout, " At last they 're done for, 

it 's their barges they have run fort 
They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the 

battle 's over now ! " 

And we looked, poor timid creatures, 

the rough old soldier's features, 
Our lips afraid to question, but he knew 

what we would ask : 
" Not sure," he said; " keep quiet, — once 

more, I guess, they '11 try it — 
Here 's damnation to the cut-throats ! " — 

then he handed me his flask, 

Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have 

a drop of old Jamaiky; 
I 'm afeard there '11 be more trouble afore 

the job is done;" 
So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful 

faint I felt and hollow, 
Standing there from early morning when 

the firing was begun. 

All through those hours of trial I had 
watched a calm clock dial, 

As the hands kept creeping, creeping, - 
they were creeping round to four, 

When the old man said, " They 're forming 
with their bagonets fixed for storm- 
ing: 

It 's the death-grip that 's a-coming, — they 
will try the works once more." 

With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames 

behind them glaring, 
The deadly wall before them, in close array 

they come; 
Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's 

fold uncoiling, — 
Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the 

reverberating drum ! 

Over heaps all torn and gory — shall I tell 

the fearful story, 
How they surged above the breastwork, as 

a sea breaks over a deck; 



AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER 



227 



How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn- 
out men retreated, 

With their powder-horns all emptied, like 
the swimmers from a wreck ? 

It has all been told and painted; as forme, 

they say I fainted, 
And the wooden - legged old Corporal 

stumped with me down the stair: 
When I woke from dreams affrighted the 

'evening lamps were lighted, — 
On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding 

breast was bare. 

And I heard through all the flurry, " Send 

for Warren ! hurry ! hurry ! 
Tell him here 's a soldier bleeding, and 

he '11 come and dress his wound ! " 
Ah, we kuew not till the morrow told its 

tale of death and sorrow, 
How the starlight found him stiffened on 

the dark and bloody ground. 

Who the youth was, what his name was, 

where the place from which he came 

was, 
Who had brought him from the battle, and 

had left him at our door, 
He could not speak to tell us; but ''twas 

one of our brave fellows, 
As the homespun plainly showed us which 

the dying soldier wore. 

For they all thought he was dying, as they 

gathered round him crying, — 
And they said, " Oh, how they '11 miss him ! " 

and, " What will his mother do ? " 
Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's 

that has been dozing, 
He faintly murmured, " Mother ! " — and 

— I saw his eyes were blue. 

'•' Why, grandma, how you 're winking ! " 

Ah, my child, it sets me thinking 
Of a story not like this one. Well, he 

somehow lived along; 
So we came to know each other, and I 

nursed him like a — mother, 
Till at last he stood before me, tall, and 

rosy-cheeked, and strong. 

And we sometimes walked together in the 
pleasant summer weather, — 

"Please to tell us what his name was?" 
Just your own, my little dear, — 



There 's his picture Copley painted: we be- 
came so well acquainted, 

That — in short, that 's why I '111 grandma, 
and you children all are here ! 

AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER 

DECEMBER 1 5, 1 874 

I suppose it 's myself that you 're making 
allusion to 

And bringing the sense of dismay and con- 
fusion to. 

Of course some must speak, — they are al- 
ways selected to, 

But pray what 's the reason that I am ex- 
pected to ? 

I 'm not fond of wasting my breath as those 
fellows do 

That want to be blowing forever as bellows 
do; 

Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog 
any 

That long to stay quiet beneath the mahog- 
any ? 

Why, why call me up with your battery of 

flatteries ? 
You say " He writes poetry," — that 's what 

the matter is ! 
" It costs him no trouble — a pen full of 

ink or two 
And the poem is done in the time of a 

wink or two; 
As for thoughts — never mind — take the 

ones that lie uppermost, 
And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron 

and Tupper most; 
The lines come so easy ! at one end he jin- 
gles 'em, 
At the other with capital letters he shingles 

'em, — 
Why, the thing writes itself, and before 

he 's half done with it 
He hates to stop writing, he has such good 

fun with it ! " 

Ah, that is the way in which simple ones 
go about 

And draw a fine picture of things they 
don't know about ! 

We all know a kitten, but come to a cata- 
mount 

The beast is a stranger when grown up to 
that amount, 



228 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



(A stranger we rather prefer should n't 
visit us, 

A fells whose advent is far from felici- 
tous.) 

The boy who can boast that his trap has 
just got a mouse 

Must n't draw it and write underneath 
" hippopotamus; " 

Or say unveraciously, " This is an ele- 
phant," — 

Don't think, let me beg, these examples 
irrelevant, — 

What they mean is just this — that a thing 
to be painted well 

Should always be something with which 
we 're acquainted well. 

You call on your victim for " things he has 
plenty of, — 

Those copies of verses no doubt at least 
twenty of; 

His desk is crammed full, for he always 
keeps writing 'em 

And reading to friends as his way of de- 
lighting 'em ! " 

I tell you this writing of verses means busi- 
ness, — 

It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of 
dizziness : 

You think they are scrawled in the languor 
of laziness — 

I tell you they 're squeezed by a spasm of 
craziness, 

A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos 

That seize a poor fellow and down in the 
dirt he goes ! 

And therefore it chimes with the word's 

etymology 
That the sons of Apollo are great on apol- 

For the writing of verse is a struggle mys- 
terious 

And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that 's 
serious. 

For myself, I 'm relied on by friends in ex- 
tremities, 

And I don't mind so much if a comfort to 
them it is; 

'Tis a pleasure to please, and the straw 
that can tickle us 

Is a source of enjoyment though slightly 
ridiculous. 

I am up for a — something — and since 
I 've begun with it, 



I must give you a toast now before I have 
done with it. 

Let me pump at my wits as they pumped 
the Cochituate 

That moistened — it may be — the very 
last bit you ate: 

Success to our publishers, authors and 
editors, 

To our debtors good luck, — pleasant 
dreams to our creditors; 

May the monthly grow yearly, till all we 
are groping for 

Has reached the fulfilment we 're all of us 
hoping for ; 

Till the bore through the tunnel — it makes 
me let off a sigh 

To think it may possibly ruin my pro- 
phecy — 

Has been punned on so often 't will never 
provoke again 

One mild adolescent to make the old joke 
again ; 

Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society 

Has forgotten the sense of the word ine- 
briety ; 

Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget 
and Phillis do 

The humanized, civilized female gorillas do; 

Till the roughs, as we call them, grown 
loving and dutiful, 

Shall worship the true and the pure and 
the beautiful, 

And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture 
do, 

All read the " Atlantic " as persons of cul- 
ture do ! 

"LUCY" 

FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 

1 8, 1875 

[The subject of this poem was a familiar fig- 
ure in the household of Dr. Holmes's father, and 
was married while living there to a farmer.] 

" Lucy." — The old familiar name 

Is now, as always, pleasant, 
Its liquid melody the same 

Alike in past or present; 
Let others call you what they will, 

I know you '11 let me use it ; 
To me your name is Lucy still, 

I cannot bear to lose it. 

What visions of the past return 
With Lucy's image blended ! 



A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



229 



What memories from the silent urn 

Of gentle lives long ended ! 
What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn, 

What starry aspirations, 
That filled the misty days unborn 

With fancy's coruscations ! 

Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped 

From April to November; 
The summer blossoms all are shed 

That you and I remember; 
But while the vanished years we share 

With mingling recollections, 
How all their shadowy features wear 

The hue of old affections ! 

Love called you. He who stole your heart 

Of sunshine half bereft us; 
Our household's garland fell apart 

The morning that you left us; 
The tears of tender girlhood streamed 

Through sorrow's opening sluices; 
Less sweet our garden's roses seemed, 

Less blue its flower-de-luces. 

That old regret is turned to smiles, 

That parting sigh to greeting; 
I send my heart-throb fifty miles, 

Through every line 't is beating; 
God grant you many and happy years, 

Till when the last has crowned you 
The dawn of endless day appears, 

And heaven is shining round you J 



HYMN 

FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE 
STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW 7 , 
HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1 875 

Behold the shape our eyes have known ! 
It lives once more in changeless stone; 
So looked in mortal face and form 
Our guide through peril's deadly storm. 

But hushed the beating heart we knew, 
That heart so tender, brave, and true, 
Firm as the rooted mountain rock, 
Pure as the quarry's whitest block ! 

Not his beneath the blood-red star 
To win the soldier's envied scar; 
Unarmed he battled for the right, 
In Duty's never-ending fight. 



Unconquered will, unslumberiug eye, 
Faith such as bids the martyr die, 
The prophet's glance, the master's hand 
To mould the work his foresight planned, 

These were his gifts; what Heaven had 

lent 
For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, 
First to avenge the traitorous blow, 
And first to lift the vanquished foe. 

Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait 
The pilot of the Pilgrim State ! 
Too large his fame for her alone, — 
A nation claims him as her own ! 



A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 

READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC 
HALL, FEBRUARY 8, 1 876, IN MEMORY 
OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE 



I 



Leader of armies, Israel's God, 

Thy soldier's fight is won ! 
Master, whose lowly path he trod, 

Thy servant's work is done ! 

No voice is heard from Sinai's steep 
Our wandering feet to guide; 

From Horeb's rock no waters leap; 
No Jordan's waves divide; 

No prophet cleaves our western sky 

On wheels of whirling fire; 
No shepherds hear the song on high 

Of heaven's angelic choir: 

Yet here as to the patriarch's tent 

God's angel comes a guest; 
He comes on heaven's high errand sent, 

In earth's poor raiment drest. 

We see no halo round his brow 

Till love its own recalls, 
And, like a leaf that quits the bough, 

The mortal vesture falls. 

In autumn's chill declining day, 

Ere winter's killing frost, 
The message came; so passed away 

The friend our earth has lost. 



230 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Still, Father, in thy love we trust; 

Forgive us if we mourn 
The saddening hour that laid in dust 

His robe of flesh outworn. 



II 

How long the wreck-strewn journey seems 

To reach the far-off past 
That woke his youth from peaceful dreams 

With Freedom's trumpet-blast ! 

Along her classic hillsides rung 

The Paynim's battle-cry, 
And like a red-cross knight he sprung 

For her to live or die. 

No trustier service claimed the wreath 

For Sparta's bravest son; 
No truer soldier sleeps beneath 

The mound of Marathon; 

Yet not for him the warrior's grave 

In front of angry foes; 
To lift, to shield, to help, to save, 

The holier task he chose. 

He touched the eyelids of the blind, 

And lo ! the veil withdrawn, 
As o'er the midnight of the mind 

He led the light of dawn. 

He asked not whence the fountains roll 

No traveller's foot has found, 
But mapped the desert of the soul 

Untracked by sight or sound, i 

What prayers have reached the sapphire 
throne, 

By silent fingers spelt, 
For him who first through depths unknown 

His doubtful pathway felt, 

Who sought the slumbering sense that lay 

Close shut with bolt and bar, 
And showed awakening thought the ray 

Of reason's morning star ! 

Where'er he moved, his shadowy form 
The sightless orbs would seek, 

And smiles of welcome light and warm 
The lips that could not speak. 

No labored line, no sculptor's art, 
Such hallowed memory needs; 



His tablet is the human heart, 
His record loving deeds. 

Ill 

The rest that earth denied is thine, — 

Ah, is it rest ? we ask, 
Or, traced by knowledge more divine, 

Some larger, nobler task ? 

Had but those boundless fields of blue 
One darkened sphere like this; 

But what has heaven for thee to do 
In realms of perfect bliss ? 

No cloud to lift, no mind to clear, 
No rugged path to smooth, 

No struggling soul to help and cheer, 
No mortal grief to soothe ! 

Enough ; is there a world of love, 

No more we ask to know; 
The hand will guide thy ways above 

That shaped thy task below. 



JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. 

1875 

Trained in the holy art whose lifted shield 
Wards off the darts a never-slumbering 

foe, 
By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to 
throw, 
Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield 
The slayer's weapon: on the murderous field 
The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low, 
Seeking its noblest victim. Even so 
The charter of a nation must be sealed! 
The healer's brow the hero's honors 
crowned, 
From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed. 
Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples 
bound; 
Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed, 
Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed 
Where Freedom's victory in defeat was 
found. 



OLD CAMBRIDGE 

JULY 3, 1875 

[Upon the occasion of the Centennial cele- 
bration of Washington taking command of 



OLD CAMBRIDGE 



231 



the American army. It was on tins occasion 

that Lowell read his ode, Under the Old 

Elm.] 

And can it be you 've found a place 

Within this consecrated space, 

That niakes so fine a show, 
For one of Rip Van Winkle's race ? 

And is it really so ? 
Who wants an old receipted bill ? 
Who fishes in the Frog-pond still ? 
Who digs last year's potato hill ? — 

That 's what he 'd like to know ! 

And were it any spot on earth 

Save this dear home that gave him birth 

Some scores of years ago, 
He had not come to spoil your mirth 

And chill your festive glow; 
But round his baby-nest he strays, 
With tearful eye the scene surveys, 
His heart unchanged by changing days, — 

That 's what he 'd have you know. 

Can you whose eyes not yet are dim 
Live o'er the buried past with him, 

And see the roses blow 
When white-haired men were Joe and Jim 

L'ntouched by winter's snow ? 
Or roll the years back one by one 
As Judah's monarch backed the sun, 
And see the century just begun ? — 

That 's what he 'd like to know ! 

I come, but as the swallow dips, 
Just touching with her feather-tips 

The shining wave below, 
To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips 

And listen to the flow 
Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, 
To tread once more my native green, 
To sigh unheard, to smile unseen, — 

That 's what I 'd have you know. 

But since the common lot I 've shared 
(We all are sitting " unprepared," 

Like culprits in a row, 
Whose heads are down, whose necks are 
bared 

To wait the headsman's blow), 
I 'd like to shift my task to you, 
By asking jnst a thing or two 
About the good old times I knew, — 

Here 's what I want to know: 



The yellow meetin' house — can you tell 
Just where it stood before it fell 

Prey of the vandal foe, — 
Our dear old temple, loved so well, 

By ruthless hands laid low ? 
Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew ? 
Whose hair was braided in a queue ? 
(For there were pig-tails not a few,) — 

That 's w T hat I 'd like to know. 

The bell — can you recall its clang ? 
And how the seats would slam and bang ? 

The voices high and low ? 
The basso's trump before he sang ? 

The viol and its bow ? 
Where w r as it old Judge Winthrop sat ? 
Who wore the last three-cornered hat ? 
Was Israel Porter lean or fat ? — 

That 's what I 'd like to know. 

Tell where the market used to be 
That stood beside the murdered tree ? 

Whose dog to church would go ? 
Old Marcus Reemie, w r ho was he ? 

Who were the brothers Snow ? 
Does not your memory slightly fail 
About that great September gale ? — 
Whereof one told a moving tale, 

As Cambridge boys should know. 

When Cambridge was a simple town, 
Say just when Deacon William Brown 

(Last door in yonder row), 
For honest silver counted down, 

His groceries would bestow ? — 
For those were days when money meant 
Something that jingled as you went, — 
No hybrid like the nickel cent, 

I 'd have you all to know r , 

But quarter, ninepence, pistareen, 
And fourpence hapennies in between, 

All metal fit to show, 
Instead of rags in stagnant green, 

The scum of debts we owe ; 
How sad to think such stuff should be 
Our Wendell's cure-all recipe, — 
Xot Wendell H., but Wendell P., — 

The one you all must know ! 

I question — but you answer not — 
Dear me ! and have I quite forgot 
How- fivescore years ago, 



232 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Just on this very blessed spot, 

The summer leaves below, 
Before his homespun ranks arrayed 
In green New England's elm-bough shade 
The great Virginian drew the blade 

King George full soon should know ! 

O George the Third ! you found it true 
Our George was more than double you, 

For nature made him so. 
Not much an empire's crown can do 

If brains are scant and slow, — 
Ah, not like that his laurel crown 
Whose presence gilded with renown 
Our brave old Academic town, 

As all her children know ! 

So here we meet with loud acclaim 
To tell mankind that here he came, 

With hearts that throb and glow; 
Ours is a portion of his fame 

Our trumpets needs must blow ! 
On yonder hill the Lion fell, 
But here was chipped the eagle's shell, — 
That little hatchet did it well, 

As all the world shall know ! 



WELCOME TO THE NATIONS 

PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1 876 

Bright on the banners of lily and rose 
Lo! the last sun of our century sets ! 
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on 
our foes, 
All but her friendships the nation for- 
gets ! 
All but her friends and their welcome 
forgets ! 
These are around her; but where are her 
foes? 
Lo, while the sun of her century sets, 
Peace with her garlands of lily and rose ! 

Welcome ! a shout like the war trumpet's 
swell 
Wakes the wild echoes that slumber 
around ! 
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell; 
Welcome ! the walls of her temple re- 
sound ! 
Hark! the gray walls of her temple re- 
sound ! 
Fide the far voices o'er hillside and dell ; 



Welcome. ! still whisper the echoes 
around ; 
Welcome ! still trembles on Liberty's bell ! 

Thrones of the continent ! isles of the 
sea ! 
Yours are the garlands of peace we en- 
twine ; 
Welcome, once more, to the land of the 
free, 
Shadowed alike by the palm and the 

pine ; 
Softly they murmur, the palm and the 
pine, 
" Hushed is our strife, in the land of the 
free ; " 
Over your children their branches en- 
twine, 
Thrones of the continents ! isles of the sea ! 



A FAMILIAR LETTER 

TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS 

Yes, write, if you want to, there 's nothing 

like trying; 
Who knows what a treasure your casket 

may hold ? 
I '11 show you that rhyming 's as easy as 

If you' 11 listen to me while the art I un- 
fold. 

Here 's a book full of words ; one can 
choose as he fancies, 
As a painter his tint, as a workman his 
tool; 
Just think ! all the poems and plays and 
romances 
Were drawn out of this, like the fish 
from a pool ! 

You can wander at will through its sylla- 
bled mazes, 
And take all you want, — not a copper 
they cost, — 
What is there to hinder your picking out 
phrases 
For an epic as clever as " Paradise 
Lost"? 

Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero, 
Use words that run smoothly, whatever 
they mean; 



A FAMILIAR LETTER 



2 33 



Leander and Lilian and Lillibnllero 

Are much the same thing- in the rhyming 
machine. 

There are words so delicious their sweet- 
ness will smother 
That boarding-school flavor of which 
we 're afraid, — 
There is "lush " is a good one, and " swirl " 
is another, — 
Put both in one stanza, its fortune is 
made. 

With musical murmurs and rhythmical 
closes 
You can cheat us of smiles when you 've 
nothing to tell; 
You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, 
And we cry with delight, " Oh, how 
sweet they do smell ! " 

Perhaps you will answer all needful condi- 
tions. 
For winning the laurels to which you 
aspire, 

By docking the tails of the two preposi- 
tious 
F the style o' the bards you so greatly 
admire. 

As for subjects of verse, they are only too 
plenty 
For ringing the changes on metrical 
chimes ; 
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty 
Have filled that great basket with bush- 
els of rhymes. 

Let me show you a picture — 't is far from 
irrelevant — 
By a famous old hand in the arts of de- 
sign; 

'T is only a photographed sketch of an 
elephant, — 
The name of the draughtsman was Rem- 
brandt of Rhine. 

How easy ! no troublesome colors to lay 
on, 
It can't have fatigued him, — no, not in 
the least, — 
A dash here and there with a hap-hazard 
crayon, 
And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, 
baggy-limbed beast. 



Just so with your verse, — 't is as easy as 
sketching, — 
You can reel off a song without knitting 
your brow, 
As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or 
etching; 
It is nothing at all, if you only know how. 

Well; imagine you 've printed your volume 
of verses: 
Your forehead is wreathed with the gar- 
land of fame, 
Your poems the eloquent school-boy re- 
hearses, 
Her album the school-girl presents for 
your name ; 

Each morning the post brings you auto- 
graph letters; 
You '11 answer them promptly, — an 
hour is n't much 
For the honor of sharing a page with your 
betters, 
With magistrates, members of Congress, 
and such. 

Of course you 're delighted to serve the 
committees 
That come with requests from the coun- 
try all round, 
You would grace the occasion with poems 
and ditties 
When they 've got a new schoolhouse, 
or poorhouse, or pound. 

With a hymn for the saints and a song for 
the sinners, 
You go and are welcome wherever you 
please; 
You 're a privileged guest at all manner of 
dinners, 
You 've a seat on the platform among 
the grandees. 

At length your mere presence becomes a 
sensation, 
Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim 
With the pleasure Horatian of digitmon- 
stration, 
As the whisper runs round of " That 's 
he ! " or " That 's him ! " 

But remember, O dealer in phrases sono- 
rous, 
So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched, 



234 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Though you soar with the wings of the 
cherubim o'er us, 
The ovum was human from which you 
were hatched. 

No will of your own with its puny compul- 
sion 
Can summon the spirit that quickens the 
lyre; 
It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convul- 
sion 
And touches the brain with a finger of 
fire. 

So perhaps, after all, it 's as well to be 
quiet 
If you 've nothing you think is worth 
saying in prose, 
As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet 
To the critics, by publishing, as you pro- 
pose. 

But it 's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I 've 
written, — 
I shall see your thin volume some day 
on my shelf; 
For the rhyming tarantula surely has bit- 
ten, 
And music must cure you, so pipe it 
yourself. 

UNSATISFIED 

" Only a housemaid ! " She looked from 
the kitchen, — 
Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she; 
There at her window a sempstress sat 
stitching ; 
"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd 
be!" 

" Only a Queen ! " She looked over the 
waters, — 
Fair was her kingdom and mighty was 
she; 
There sat an Empress, with Queens for 
her daughters; 
" "Were I an Empress, how happy I 'd 
be!" 

Still the old frailty they all of them trip in ! 

Eve in her daughters is ever the same ; 
Give her all Eden, she sighs for a pippin ; 

Give her an Empire, she pines for a 
name ! 



HOW THE OLD HORSE WON 
THE BET 

DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE 
COLLEGIAN, 1830, TO THE EDITORS 
OF THE HARVARD ADVOCATE, 1 876 

Unquestionably there is something' a little 
like extravagance in How the Old Horse won 
the Bet, which taxes the credulity of experi- 
enced horsemen. Still there have been a good 
many surprises in the history of the turf and 
the trotting course. 

The Godolphin Arabian was taken from ig- 
noble drudgery to become the patriarch of the 
English racing stock 

Old Dutchman was transferred from between 
the shafts of a cart to become a champion of 
the American trotters in his time. 

" Old Blue," a famous Boston horse of the 
early decades of this century, was said to trot 
a mile in less than three minutes, but I do not 
find any exact record of his achievements. 

Those who have followed the history of the 
American trotting horse are aware of the won- 
derful development of speed attained in these 
last years. The lowest time as yet recorded is 
by Maud S., in 2.08f. 

'T WAS on the famous trotting-ground, 
The betting men were gathered round 
From far and near; the "cracks" were 

there 
Whose deeds the sporting prints declare: 
The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, 
The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, 
With these a third — and who is he 
That stands beside his fast b. g. ? 
Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name 
So fills the nasal trump of fame. 
There too stood many a noted steed 
Of Messenger and Morgan breed; 
Green horses also, not a few; 
Unknown as yet what they could do; 
And all the hacks that know so well 
The scourgings of the Sunday swell. 

Blue are the skies of opening day; 
The bordering turf is green with May; 
The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown 
On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan ; 
The horses paw and prance and neigh, 
Fillies and colts like kittens play, 
And dance and toss their rippled manes 
Shining and soft as silken skeins ; 
Wagons and gigs are ranged about, 



HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET 



235 



Aud fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; 
Here stands — each youthful Jehu's 

dream — 
The jointed tandem, ticklish team ! 
And there in ampler breadth expand 
The splendors of the four-in-hand; 
On faultless ties and glossy tiles 
The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; 
(The style 's the man, so books avow; 
The style 's the woman, anyhow) ; 
From flounces frothed with creamy lace 
Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, 
Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, 
Or stares the wiry pet of Skye, — 
O woman, in your hours of ease 
So shv with us, so free with these ! 



" Come on ! I '11 bet vou two to one 



I '11 make him do it ! " 
Done ! " 



Will 



you 



What was it who was bound to do ? 
I did not hear and can't tell you, — 
Pray listen till my story 's through. 
Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, 
By cart and wagon rudely prest, 
The parson's lean aud bony bay 
Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay — 
Lent to his sexton for the day; 
(A funeral — so the sexton said; 
His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) 

Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, 
So looked the poor forlorn old beast; 
His coat was rough, his tail was bare, 
The gray was sprinkled in his hair; 
Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, 
Arid yet they say he once could trot 
Among the fleetest of the town, 
Till something cracked and broke him 

down, — 
The steed's, the statesman's, common lot ! 
" Aud are we then so soon forgot V " 
Ah me ! I doubt if one of you 
Has ever heard the name " Old Blue," 
Whose fame through all this region rung 
In those old days when I was young ! 

" Bring forth the horse ! " Alas ! he 
showed 

Xot like the one Mazeppa rode; 

Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky- 
kneed, 

The wreck of what was once a steed, 



Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; 
Yet not without his knowing points. 
The sexton laughing in his sleeve, 
As if 't were all a make-believe, 
Led forth the horse, and as he laughed 
Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, 
Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, 
Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, 
Slipped off his head-stall, set him free 
From strap and rein, — a sight to see ! 

So worn, so lean in every limb, 
It can't be they are saddling him ! 
It is ! his back the pig-skin strides 
And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides; 
With look of mingled scorn and mirth 
They buckle round the saddle-girth; 
With horsy wink and saucy toss 
A youngster throws his leg across, 
And so, his rider on his back, 
They lead him, limping, to the track, 
Far up behind the starting-point, 
To limber out each stiffened joint. 

As through the jeering crowd he past, 
One pitying look Old Hiram cast; 
" Go it, ye cripple, while ye can ! " 
Cried out unsentimental Dan; 
" A Fast-Day dinner for the crows ! " 
Budd Doble's scoffing shout arose. 

Slowly, as when the walking-beam 
First feels the gathering head of steam, 
With warning cough and threatening 

wheeze 
The stiff old charger crooks his knees; 
At first with cautious step sedate, 
As if he dragged a coach of state; 
He 's not a colt; he knows full well 
That time is weight and sure to tell; 
Xo horse so sturdy but he fears 
The handicap of twenty years. 

As through the throng on either hand 
The old horse nears the judges' stand, 
Beneath his jockey's feather-weight 
He warms a little to his gait, 
And now and then a step is tried 
That hints of something like a stride. 

" Go ! " — Through his ear the summons 

stung 
As if a battle-trump had rung; 
The slumbering instincts long unstirred 



,36 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Start at the old familiar word; 

It thrills like flame through every limb, — ■ 

What mean his twenty years to him ? 

The savage blow his rider dealt 

Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt; 

The spur that pricked his staring hide 

Unheeded tore his bleeding side; 

Alike to him are spur and rein, — 

He steps a five-year-old again ! 

Before the quarter pole was past, 

Old Hiram said, " He 's going fast." 

Long ere the quarter was a half, 

The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh; 

Tighter his frightened jockey clung 

As in a mighty stride he swung, 

The gravel flying in his track, 

His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, 

His tail extended all the while 

Behind him like a rat-tail file ! 

Off went a shoe, — away it spun, 

Shot like a bullet from a gun ; 

The quaking jockey shapes a prayer 

From scraps of oaths he used to swear; 

He drops his whip, he drops his rein, 

He clutches fiercely for a mane ; 

He '11 lose his hold — he sways and reels — 

He '11 slide beneath those trampling heels ! 

The knees of many a horseman quake, 

The flowers on many a bonnet shake, 

And shouts arise from left and right, 

''Stick on! Stick on!" " Hould tight! 

Hould tight ! " 
" Cling round his neck and don't let go — 
That pace can't hold — there ! steady ! 

whoa ! " 
But like the sable steed that bore 
The spectral lover of Lenore, 
His nostrils snorting foam and fire, 
No stretch his bony limbs can tire; 
And now the stand he rushes by, 
And " Stop him ! — stop him ! " is the 

cry- 
Stand back ! he 's only just begun — 
He 's having out three heats in one ! 

' ' Don't rush in front ! he '11 smash your 

brains; 
But follow up and grab the reins ! " 
Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, 
And sprang impatient at the word ; 
Budd Doble started on his bay, 
Old Hiram followed on his gray, 
And off they spring, and round they go, 



The fast ones doing " all they know." 
Look ! twice they follow at his heels, 
As round the circling course he wheels, 
And whirls with him that clinging boy 
Like Hector round the walls of Troy; 
Still on, and on, the third time round ! 
They 're tailing off ! they 're losing ground ! 
Budd Doble's nag begins to fail ! 
Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail ! 
And see ! in spite of whip and shout, 
Old Hiram's mare is giving out ! 
Now for the finish ! at the turn, 
The old horse — all the rest astern — 
Comes swinging in, with easy trot; 
By Jove ! he 's distanced all the lot ! 

That trot no mortal could explain; 

Some said, " Old Dutchman come again ! " 

Some took his time, — at least they tried, 

But what it was could none decide; 

One said he could n't understand 

What happened to his second hand; 

One said 2.10; that couldn't be — 

More like two twenty-two or three; 

Old Hiram settled it at last; 

" The time was two — too dee-vel-ish fast ! " 

The parson's horse had won the bet; 

It cost him something of a sweat; 

Back in the one-horse shay he went; 

The parson wondered what it meant, 

And murmured, with a mild surprise 

And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, 

" That funeral must have been a trick, 

Or corpses drive at double-quick; 

I should n't wonder, I declare, 

If brother — Jehu — made the prayer ! " 

And this is all I have to say 
About that tough old trotting bay, 
Huddup ! Huddup ! G'lang ! Good day ! 

Moral for which this tale is told : 
A horse can trot, for all he 's old. 



AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD 
SOUTH" 

" While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." 

[Written in the spirit of Old Ironsides. 
There was danger that the historic church in 
Boston would be destroyed, since it stood on 



THE FIRST FAN 



237 



land very valuable for commercial purposes, 
and the congregation worshipping in it had 
built a new meeting-house in the dwelling- 
house part of the city. The building was 
saved almost wholly through the intervention 
of public-spirited women, headed by Mrs. 
Mary Hemenway, who not only contributed 
most of the money needed, but afterward 
made the church the centre of important work 
in the teaching of history.] 

Full sevenscore years our city's pride — 

The comely Southern spire — 
Has cast its shadow, and defied 

The storm, the foe, the fire; 
Sad is the sight our eyes behold; 

Woe to the three-hilled town, 
When through the land the tale is told — 

" The brave ' Old South ' is down ! " 

Let darkness blot the starless dawn 

That hears our children tell, 
" Here rose the walls, now wrecked and 
gone, 

Our fathers loved so well; 
Here, while his brethren stood aloof, 

The herald's blast was blown 
That shook St. Stephen's pillared roof 

And rocked King George's throne ! 

" The home-bound wanderer of the main 

Looked from his deck afar, 
To where the gilded, glittering vane 

Shone like the evening star, 
And pilgrim feet from every clime 

The floor with reverence trod, 
Where holy memories made sublime 

The shrine of Freedom's God ! " 

The darkened skies, alas ! have seen 

Our monarch tree laid low, 
And spread in ruins o'er the green, 

But Nature struck the blow; 
No scheming thrift its downfall planned, 

It felt no edge of steel, 
No soulless hireling raised his hand 

The deadly stroke to deal. 

In bridal garlands, pale and mute, 

Still pleads the storied tower; 
These are the blossoms, but the fruit 

Awaits the golden shower; 
The spire still greets the morning sun, — 

Say, shall it stand or fall ? 
Help, ere the spoiler has begun ! 

Help, each, and God help all ! 



THE FIRST FAN 

READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON 
BRIC-A-BRAC CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1 877 

When rose the cry " Great Pan is dead ! " 
And Jove's high palace closed its portal, 

The fallen gods, before they fled, 
Sold out their frippery to a mortal. 

" To whom ? " you ask. I ask of you. 

The answer hardly needs suggestion; 
Of course it was the Wandering Jew, — 

How could you put me such a question ? 

A purple robe, a little worn, 

The Thunderer deigned himself to offer; 
The bearded wanderer laughed in scorn, — 

You know he always was a scoffer. 

" Vif e shillins ! 't is a monstrous price ; 

Say two and six and further talk shun." 
"Take it," cried Jove; "we can't be 
nice, — 
'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's 
auction." 

The ice was broken; up they came, 

All sharp for bargains, god and goddess, 

Each ready with the price to name 

For robe or head-dress, scarf or bodice. 

First Juno, out of temper, too, — 

Her queenly forehead somewhat cloudy; 

Then Pallas in her stockings blue, 
Imposing, but a little dowdy. 

The scowling queen of heaven unrolled 
Before the Jew a threadbare turban: 

"Three shillings." "One. 'T will suit 
some old 
Terrific feminine suburban." 

But as for Pallas, — how to tell 

In seemly phrase a fact so shocking ? 

She pointed, — pray excuse me, — well, 
She pointed to her azure stocking. 

And if the honest truth were told, 

Its heel confessed the need of darning; 
"Gods!" low-bred Vulcan cried, "be- 
hold ! 
There ! that 's what comes of too much 
laming ! " 



2 3 S 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Pale Proserpine came groping round, 

Her pupils dreadfully dilated 
With too much living underground — 

A residence quite overrated; 

" This kerchief 's what you want, I know, — 
Don't cheat poor Venus of her cestus, — 

You '11 find it handy when you go 

To — you know where ; it 's pure as- 
bestus." 

Then Phoebus of the silver bow, 
And Hebe, dimpled as a baby, 

And Dian with the breast of snow, 

Chaser and chased — and caught, it may 
be: 

One took the quiver from her back, 
One held the cap he spent the night in, 

And one a bit of bric-a-brac, 

Such as the gods themselves delight in. 

Then Mars, the foe of human kind, 

Strode up and showed his suit of armor; 

So none at last was left behind 
Save Venus, the celestial charmer. 

Poor Venus ! What had she to sell ? 

For all she looked so fresh and jaunty, 
Her wardrobe, as I blush to tell, 

Already seemed but quite too scanty. 

Her gems were sold, her sandals gone, — 
She always would be rash and flighty, — 

Her winter garments all in pawn, 
Alas for charming Aphrodite ! 

The lady of a thousand loves, 
The darling of the old religion, 

Had only left of all the doves 

That drew her car one fan-tailed pigeon. 

How oft upon her finger-tips 

He perched, afraid of Cupid's arrow, 

Or kissed her on the rosebud lips, 

Like Roman Lesbia's loving sparrow ! 

' ' My bird, I want your train," she cried ; 

" Come, don't let's have a fuss about it; 
I '11 make it beauty's pet and pride, 

And you '11 be better off without it. 

" So vulgar ! Have you noticed, pray, 
An earthly belle or dashing bride walk, 



And how her flounces track her way, 
Like slimy serpents on the sidewalk ? 

" A lover's heart it quickly cools ; 

In mine it kindles up enough rage 
To wring their necks. How can such fools 

Ask men to vote for woman suffrage ? " 

The goddess spoke, and gently stripped 
Her bird of every caudal feather; 

A strand of gold-bright hair she clipped, 
And bound the glossy plumes together, 

And lo, the Fan ! for beauty's hand, 
The lovely queen of beauty made it; 

The price she named was hard to stand, 
But Venus smiled: the Hebrew paid it. 

Jove, Juno, Venus, where are you ? 

Mars, Mercury, Phoebus, Neptune, Sat- 
urn ? 
But o'er the world the Wandering Jew 

Has borne the Fan's celestial pattern. 

So everywhere we find the Fan, — 

In lonely isles of the Pacific, 
In farthest China and Japan, — 

Wherever suns are sudorific. 

Nay, even the oily Esquimaux 

In summer court its cooling breezes, — 
In fact, in every clime 't is so, 

No matter if it fries or freezes. 

And since from Aphrodite's dove 
The pattern of the fan was given, 

No wonder that it breathes of love 

And wafts the perfumed gales of heaven ! 

Before this new Pandora's gift 

In slavery woman's tyrant kept her, 

But now he kneels her glove to lift, — 
The fan is mightier than the sceptre. 

The tap it gives how arch and sly ! 

The breath it wakes how fresh and 
grateful ! 
Behind its shield how soft the sigh ! 

The whispered tale of shame how fateful ! 

Its empire shadows every throne 

And every shore that man is tost on ; 

It rules the lords of every zone, 

Nay, even the bluest blood of Boston ! 



A FAMILY RECORD 



2 39 



But every one that swings to-night, 
Of fairest shape, from farthest region, 

May trace its pedigree aright 
To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon. 



TO 



RUTHERFORD 
HAYES 



BIRCHARD 



AT THE DINNER TO THE PRESIDENT, 
BOSTON, JUNE 26, 1 877 

How to address him ? awkward, it is true : 
Call him " Great Father," as the Red Men 

do? 
Borrow some title ? this is not the place 
That christens men Your Highness and 

Your Grace; 
"We tried such names as these awhile, you 

know. 
But left them off a century ago. 

His Majesty ? We 've had enough of that: 
Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a 

hat. 
What if, to make the nicer ears content, 
We say His Honesty, the President ? 

Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave, 
When to your hands their precious trust 

we gave, 
And we have found you better thanwe knew, 
Braver, and not less honest, not less true ! 
So every heart has opened, every hand 
Tino-les with welcome, aud through all the 

land 
All voices greet you in one broad acclaim, 
Healer of strife ! Has earth a nobler 

name ? 

What phrases mean you do not need to 

learn ; 
We must be civil, and they serve our turn: 
'• Your most obedient humble " means — 

means what ? 
Something the well-bred signer just is not. 
Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe; 
There is one language never can deceive: 
The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; 
The mother knows it when she clasps her 

child; 
Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, 
Words grope and stumble; this will tell 

their tale 
Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, 



But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. 
Look in our eyes ! Your welcome waits 

you there, — 
North, South, East, West, from all and 

everywhere ! 

THE SHIP OF STATE 

A SENTIMENT 

This " sentiment " was read on the same oc- 
casion as the Family Record, which immedi- 
ately follows it. The latter poem is the dutif ul 
tribute of a son to his father and his father's 
ancestors, residents of Woodstock [Connecticut] 
from its first settlement. [The occasion was 
the celebration of the Fourth of July, 1877, hi 
accordance with a custom established at Wood- 
stock by Mr. H. C. Bowen.] 

The Ship of State ! above her skies are 

blue, 
But still she rocks a little, it is true, 
And there are passengers whose faces white 
Show they don't feel as happy as they 

might ; 
Yet on the whole her crew are quite content, 
Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent, 
And willing, if her pilot thinks it best, 
To head a little nearer south by west. 
And this they feel: the ship came too near 

wreck, 
In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck, 
Now when she glides serenely on her way, — 
The shallows past where dread explosives 

lay,- 

The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try: 
Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie ! 
And so I give you all the Ship of State; 
Freedom's last venture is her priceless 

freight ; 
God speed her, keep her, bless her, while 

she steers 
Amid the breakers of unsounded years; 
Lead her through danger's paths with even 

keel, 
And guide the honest hand that holds her 

wheel ! 



A FAMILY RECORD 

Xot to myself this breath of vesper song, 
Not to these patient friends, this kindly 

throng, 
Xot to this hallowed morning, though it be 



240 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Oar summer Christmas, Freedom's jubilee, 

When every summit, topmast, steeple, 
tower, 

That owns her empire spreads her starry- 
flower, 

Its blood-streaked leaves in heaven's be- 
nignant dew 

Washed clean from every crimson stain 
they knew, — 

No, not to these the passing thrills belong- 
That steal my breath to hush themselves 
with song. 
These moments all are memory's; I have 
come 

To speak with lips that rather should be 
dumb; 

For what are words ? At every step I 
tread 

The dust that wore the footprints of the 
dead 

But for whose life my life had never known 

This faded vesture which it calls its own. 

Here sleeps my father's sire, and they who 
gave 

That earlier life here found their peaceful 
grave. 

In days gone by I sought the hallowed 
ground ; 

Climbed yon long slope; the sacred spot I 
found 

Where all unsullied lies the winter snow, 

Where all ungathered spring's pale violets 
blow, 

And tracked from stone to stone the 
Saxon name 

That marks the blood I need not blush to 
claim, 

Blood such as warmed the Pilgrim sons of 
toil, 

Who held from God the charter of the soil. 
I come an alien to your hills and plains, 

Yet feel your birthright tingling in my 
veins; 

Mine are this changing prospect's sun and 
shade, 

In full-blown summer's bridal pomp ar- 
rayed ; 

Mine these fair hillsides and the vales be- 
tween; 

Mine the sweet streams that lend their 
brightening green; 

I breathed your air — the sunlit landscape 
smiled ; 

I touch your soil — it knows its children's 
child: 



Throned in my heart your heritage is mine; 
I claim it all by memory's right divine ! 
Waking, I dream. Before my vacant 

eyes 
In long procession shadowy forms arise ; 
Far through the vista of the silent years 
I see a venturous band; the pioneers, 
Who let the sunlight through the forest's 

gloom, 
Who bade the harvest wave, the garden 

bloom. 
Hark ! loud resounds the bare-armed set- 
tler's axe, — 
See where the stealthy panther left his 

tracks ! 
As fierce, as stealthy creeps the skulking 

foe 
With stone-tipped shaft and sinew-corded 

bow; 
Soon shall he vanish from his ancient reign, 
Leave his last cornfield to the coming train, 
Quit the green margin of the wave he 

drinks, 
For haunts that hide the wild-cat and the 

lynx. 

But who the Youth his glistening axe 

that swings 
To smite the pine that shows a hundred 

rings ? 
His features ? — something in his look I 

find 
That calls the semblance of my race to 

mind. 
His name ? — my own ; and that which 

goes before 
The same that once the loved disciple bore. 
Young, brave, discreet, the father of a line 
Whose voiceless lives have found a voice 

in mine; 
Thinned by unnumbered currents though 

they be, 
Thanks for the ruddy drops I claim from 

thee ! 

The seasons pass; the roses come and go; 
Snows fall and melt; the waters freeze and 

flow; 
The boys are men; the girls, grown tall 

and fair, 
Have found their mates ; a gravestone here 

and there 
Tells where the fathers lie; the silvered 

hair 
Of some bent patriarch yet recalls the time 



A FAMILY RECORD 



241 



That saw his feet the northern hillside 

climb, 
A pilgrim from the pilgrims far away, 
The godly men, the dwellers by the bay. 
On many a hearthstone burns the cheerful 

fire; 
The schoolhouse porch, the heavenward 

pointing spire 
Proclaim in letters every eye can read, 
Knowledge and Faith, the new world's sim- 
ple creed. 
Hush ! 't is the Sabbath's silence-stricken 

morn : 
No feet must wander through the tasselled 

corn ; 
No merry children laugh around the door, 
No idle playthings strew the sanded floor; 
The law of Moses lays its awful ban 
On all that stirs; here comes the tithing- 

man ! 
At last the solemn hour of worship 

calls ; 
Slowly they gather in the sacred walls; 
Man in his strength and age with knotted 

staff, 
And boyhood aching for its week-day 

laugh, 
The toil-worn mother with the child she 

leads, 
The maiden, lovely in her golden beads, — 
The popish symbols round her neck she 

wears, 
But on them counts her lovers, not her 

prayers, — 
Those youths in homespun suits and rib- 
boned queues, 
Whose hearts are beatiug in the high- 
backed pews. 
The pastor rises; looks along the seats 
With searching eye; each wonted face he 

meets; 
Asks heavenly guidance ; finds the chapter's 

place 
That tells some tale of Israel's stubborn 

race ; 
Gives out the sacred song; all voices join, 
For no quartette extorts their scanty coin; 
Then while both hands their black-gloved 

palms display, 
Lifts his gray head, and murmurs, " Let us 

pray ! " 
And pray he does ! as one that never 

fears 
To plead unanswered by the God that hears; 
What if he dwells on many a fact as though 



Some things Heaven knew not which it 

ought to know, — 
Thanks God for all his favors past, and yet, 
Tells Him there 's something He must not 

forget; 
Such are the prayers his people love to 

hear, — 
See how the Deacon slants his listening ear ! 
What ! look once more ! Nay, surely 

there I trace 
The hinted outlines of a well-known face ! 
Not those the lips for laughter to beguile, 
Yet round their corners lurks an embryo 

smile, 
The same on other lips my childhood knew 
That scarce the Sabbath's mastery could 

subdue. 
Him too my lineage gives me leave to 

claim, — 
The good, grave man that bears the Psalm- 
ist's name. 

And still in ceaseless round the seasons 

passed; 
Spring piped her carol; Autumn blew his 

blast; 
Babes waxed to manhood ; manhood shrunk 

to age; 
Life's worn-out players tottered off the 

stage; 
The few are many; boys have grown to men 
Since Putnam dragged the wolf from Pom- 
fret's den; 
Our new-old Woodstock is a thriving town; 
Brave are her children; faithful to the 

crown ; 
Her soldiers' steel the savage redskin 

knows ; 
Their blood has crimsoned his Canadian 

snows. 
And now once more along the quiet vale 
Rings the dread call that turns the mothers 

pale; 
Full well they know the valorous heat that 

runs 
In every pulse-beat of their loyal sons; 
Who would not bleed in good King George's 

cause 
When England's lion shows his teeth and 

claws ? 
With glittering firelocks on the village 

green 
In proud array a martial band is seen ; 
You know what names those ancient rosters 

hold, — 



242 



BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS 



Whose belts were buckled when the drum- 
beat rolled, — 

But mark their Captain! tell us, who is 
he? 

On his brown face that same old look I 
see! 

Yes ! from the homestead's still retreat he 
came, 

Whose peaceful owner bore the Psalmist's 
name ; 

The same his own. Well, Israel's glorious 
kiug 

Who struck the harp could also whirl the 
sling, — 

Breathe in his song a penitential sigh 

And smite the sons of Amalek hip and 
thigh: 

These shared their task; one deaconed out 
the psalm, 

One slashed the scalping hell-hounds of 
Montcalm ; 

The praying father's pious work is done, 

Now sword in hand steps forth the fighting 
son. 
On many a field he fought in wilds afar; 

See on his swarthy cheek the bullet's scar ! 

There hangs a murderous tomahawk; be- 
neath, 

Without its blade, a knife's embroidered 
sheath; 

Save for the stroke his trusty weapon dealt 

His scalp had dangled at their owner's 
belt; 

But not for him such fate; he lived to see 

The bloodier strife that made our nation 
free, 

To serve with willing toil, with skilful 
hand, 

The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land. 

His wasting life to others' needs he gave, — 

Sought rest in home and found it in the 
grave. 

See where the stones life's brief memorials 
keep, 

The tablet telling where he "fell on 
sleep," — 

Watched by a winged cherub's rayless 
eye, — 

A scroll above that says we all must die, — 

Those saddening lines beneath, the " Night- 
Thoughts " lent: 

So stands the Soldier's, Surgeon's monu- 
ment. 

Ah! at a glance my filial eye divines 

The scholar son in those remembered lines. 



The Scholar Son. His hand my foot- 
steps led. 
No more the dim unreal past I tread. 
thou whose breathing form was once so 

dear, 
Whose cheering voice was music to my ear, 
Art thou not with me as my feet pursue 
The village paths so well thy boyhood 

knew, 
Along the tangled margin of the stream 
Whose murmurs blended with thine in- 
fant dream, 
Or climb the hill, or thread the wooded vale, 
Or seek the wave where gleams yon dis- 
tant sail, 
Or the old homestead's narrowed bounds 

explore, 
Where sloped the roof that sheds the rains 

no more, 
Where one last relic still remains to tell 
Here stood thy home, — the memory-haunt- 
ed well, 
Whose waters quench a deeper thirst than 

thine, 
Changed at my lips to sacramental wine, — 
Art thou not with me, as I fondly trace 
The scanty records of thine honored race, 
Call up the forms that earlier years have 

known, 
And spell the legend of each slanted stone ? 
With thoughts of thee my loving verse 
began, 
Not for the critic's curious eye to scan, 
Not for the many listeners, but the few 
Whose fathers trod the paths my fathers 

knew; 
Still in my heart thy loved remembrance 

burns ; 
Still to my lips thy cherished name returns; 
Could I but feel thy gracious presence near 
Amid the groves that once to thee were 

dear ! 
Could but my trembling lips with mortal 

speech 
Thy listening ear for one brief moment 

reach ! 
How vain the dream ! The pallid voyager's 

track 
No sign betrays; he sends no message back. 
No word from thee since evening's shadow 

fell 
On thy cold forehead with my long fare- 
well, — 
Now from the margin of the silent sea, 
Take my last offering ere I cross to thee ! 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 

1877-1881 
THE IRON GATE 



[Read at the Breakfast given in honor of 
Dr. Holmes's Seventieth Birthday hy the pub- 
lishers of the Atlantic Monthly, Boston, De- 
cember 3, 1879.] 

Where is this patriarch you are kindly 
greeting ? 
Xot unfamiliar to my ear his name, 
Xor yet unknown to many a joyous meet- 
ing 
In days long vanished, — is he still the 
same, 

Or changed by years, forgotten and for- 
getting, 
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech 
and thought, 
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fret- 
ting, 
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it 
ought ? 

Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I 
know him, — 
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills 
the prey; 
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem, 
Oft have I met him from my earliest day: 

In my old JEsop, toiling with his bundle, — 
His load of sticks, — politely asking 
Death, 
Who comes when called for, — would he 
lug or trundle 
His fagot for him ? — he was scant of 
breath. 

And sad " Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher," — 
Has he not stamped the image on my 
soul, 



In that last chapter, where the worn-out 
Teacher 
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken 
bowl? 

Yes, long, indeed, I 've known him at a 
distance, 
And now my lifted door-latch shows him 
here ; 
I take his shrivelled hand without resist- 
ance, 
And find him smiling as his step draws 
near. 

What though of gilded baubles he bereaves 
us, 
Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's 
prime ; 
Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he 
leaves us, 
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time ! 

Altars once flaming, still with incense fra- 
grant, 
Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep, 
Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less va- 
grant, 
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream 
how deep ! 

Still as the silver cord gets worn and 
slender, 
Its lightened task-work tugs with lessen- 
ing strain, 
Hands get more helpful, voices, grown 
more tender, 
Soothe with their softened tones the 
slumberous brain. 

Youth longs and manhood strives, but age 
remembers, 
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, 



243 



44 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 






Spreads its thin hands above the whitening 
embers 
That warm its creeping life-blood till 
the last. 

Dear to its heart is every loving token 
That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows 
cold, 
Ere the last lingering ties of life are 
broken, 
Its labors ended and its story told. 

Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, 
For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh, 

And through the chorus of its jocund voices 
Throbs the sharp note of misery's hope- 
less cry. 

As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying 
From some far orb I track our watery 
sphere, 
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubt- 
ing, dying, 
The silvered globule seems a glistening 
tear. 

But Nature lends her mirror of illusion 
To win from saddening scenes our age- 
dimmed eyes, 
And misty day-dreams blend in sweet con- 
fusion 
The wintry landscape and the summer 
skies. 

So when the iron portal shuts behind us, 

And life forgets us in its noise and whirl, 
Visions that shunned the glaring noonday 
find us, 
And glimmering starlight shows the 
gates of pearl. 

I come not here your morning hour to sad- 
den, 
A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff, — 
I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden 
This vale of sorrows with a wholesome 
laugh. 

If word of mine another's gloom has 
brightened, 
Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent 
message came; 
If hand of mine another's task has lightened, 
It felt the guidance that it dares not 
claim. 



But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers. 
These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of 
toil's release; 
These feebler pulses bid me leave to others 
The tasks once welcome; evening asks 
for peace. 



Time claims his tribute; silence now is 

golden ; 

Let me not vex the too long suffering 

lyre; 

Though to your love untiring still beholden, 

The curfew tells me — cover up the fire. 

And now with grateful smile and accents 
cheerful, 
And warmer heart than look or word 
can tell, 
In simplest phrase — these traitorous eyes 
are tearful — 
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters, — Children, 
— and farewell! 



VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETROR- 

SUM 

AN ACADEMIC POEM 
1829-1879 

Read at the Commencement Dinner of the 
Alumni of Harvard University, June 25, 1879. 

While fond, sad memories all around 

us throng, 
Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song; 
Yet when the leaves are green and heaven 

is blue, 
The choral tribute of the grove is due, 
And when the lengthening nights have 

chilled the skies, 
We fain would hear the song-bird ere he 

flies, 
And greet with kindly welcome, even as 

now, 
The lonely minstrel on his leafless bough. 

This is our golden year, — its golden 

. <%; 

Its bridal memories soon must pass away; 
Soon shall its dying music cease to ring, 
And every year must loose some silver 
string, 



VESTIGIA QUIXQUE RETRORSUM 



2 45 



Till the last trembling chords no longer 

thrill, — 
Hands all at rest and hearts forever still. 

A few gray heads have joined the form- 
ing line; 

We hear our summons, — " Class of 
'Twenty-Nine ! " 

Close on the foremost, and, alas, how few ! 

Are these " The Boys " our dear old Mother 
knew ? 

Sixty brave swimmers. Twenty — some- 
thing more — 

Have passed the stream and reached this 
frosty shore ! 

How near the banks these fifty years di- 
vide 

When memory crosses with a single stride ! 

'T is the flrst^ year of stern " Old Hick- 
ory " 's rule 

When our good Mother lets us out of 
school, 

Half glad, half sorrowing, it must be con- 
fessed, 

To leave her quiet lap, her bounteous breast. 

Armed with our dainty, ribbon-tied degrees, 

Pleased and yet pensive, exiles and A. B.'s. 

Look back, O comrades, with your faded 

eyes, 
And see the phantoms as I bid them rise. 
Whose smile is that ? Its pattern Nature 

gave, 
A sunbeam dancing in a dimpled wave; 
Kirkland alone such grace from Heaven 

could win, 
His features radiant as the soul within; 
That smile would let him through Saint 

Peter's gate 
While sad-eyed martyrs had to stand and 

wait. 
Here flits mercurial Farrar; standing there, 
See mild, benignant, cautious, learned Ware, 
And sturdy, patient, faithful, honest Hedge, 
Whose grinding logic gave our wits their 

edge ; 
Ticknor, with honeyed voice and courtly 

grace ; 
And Willard, larynxed like a double bass; 
And Charming, with his bland, superior 

look, 
Cool as a moonbeam on a frozen brook, 
While the pale student, shivering in his 

shoes. 



Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric 

ooze; 
And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak 
His martial manhood on a class in Greek, 
Popkin ! How that explosive name recalls 
The grand old Busby of our ancient halls ! 
Such faces looked from Skippon's grim 

platoons, 
Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dra- 
goons; 
He gave his strength to learning's gentle 

charms, 
But every accent sounded "Shoulder 
arms ! " 

Names, — empty names ! Save only 

here and there 
Some white-haired listener, dozing in his 

chair, 
Starts at the sound he often used to hear, 
And upward slants his Sunday-sermon ear. 

And we — our blooming manhood we re- 
gain; 

Smiling we join the long Commencement 
train, 

One point first battled in discussion hot, — 

Shall ice wear gowns ? and settled: We will 
not. 

How strange the scene, — that noisy boy- 
debate 

Where embryo- speakers learn to rule the 
State ! 

This broad-browed youth, sedate and sober- 
eyed, 

Shall wear the ermiued robe at Taney's 
side ; 

And he, the stripling, smooth of face and 
slight, 

Whose slender form scarce intercepts the 
light, 

Shall rule the Bench where Parsons gave 
the law, 

And sphinx-like sat uncouth, majestic 
Shaw ! 

Ah, many a star has shed its fatal ray 

On names we loved — our brothers — 
where are they ? 

Nor these alone; our hearts in silence 
claim 

Names not less dear, unsyllabled by fame. 

How brief the space ! and yet it sweeps 
us back 
Far, far along our new-born history's track ! 



246 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



Five strides like this; — the sachem rules 

the land; 
The Indian wigwams cluster where we 

stand. 

The second. Lo ! a scene of deadly 

strife — 
A nation struggling into infant life ; 
Not yet the fatal game at Yorktown won 
Where failing Empire fired its sunset gun. 
Langdon sits restless in the ancient chair, — 
Harvard's grave Head, — these echoes 

heard his prayer 
When from yon mansion, dear to memory 

still, 
The banded yeomen marched for Bunker's 

Hill. 
Count on the grave triennial's thick-starred 

roll 
What names were numbered on the length- 
ening scroll, — 
Not unfamiliar in our ears they ring, — 
Winthrop, Hale, Eliot, Everett, Dexter, 

Tyng. 

Another stride. Once more at 'twenty- 
nine, — 
God save King George, the Second of his 

line ! 
And is Sir Isaac living ? Nay, not so, — 
He followed Flamsteed two short years 

ago, — 
And what about the little hump-backed 

man 
Who pleased the bygone days of good 

Queen Anne ? 
What, Pope ? another book he 's just put 

out, — 
" The Dunciad," — witty, but profane, no 

doubt. 
Where 's Cotton Mather ? he was always 

here. 
And so he would be, but he died last year. 
Who is this preacher our Northampton 

claims, 
Whose rhetoric blazes with sulphureous 

flames 
And torches stolen from Tartarean mines ? 
Edwards, the salamander of divines. 
A deep, strong nature, pure and undefiled; 
Faith, firm as his who stabbed his sleeping 

child; 
Alas for him who blindly strays apart, 
And seeking God has lost his human heart ! 



Fall where they might, no flying cinders 

caught 
These sober halls where Wadsworth 

ruled and taught. 

One footstep more; the fourth receding 

stride 
Leaves the round century on the nearer 

side. 
God save King Charles ! God knows 

that pleasant knave 
His grace will find it hard enough to save. 
Ten years and more, and now the Plague, 

the Fire, 
Talk of all tongues, at last begin to tire ; 
One fear prevails, all other frights forgot, — 
White lips are whispering, — hark ! The 

Popish Plot ! 
Happy New England, from such troubles 

free 
In health and peace beyond the stormy sea ! 
No Romish daggers threat her children's 

throats, 
No gibbering nightmare mutters " Titus 

Oates; " 
Philip is slain, the Quaker graves are 

green, 
Not yet the witch has entered on the scene ; 
Happy our Harvard; pleased her graduates 

four; 
Urian Oakes the name their parchments 

bore. 

Two centuries past, our hurried feet 

arrive 
At the last footprint of the scanty five; 
Take the fifth stride; our wandering eyes 

explore 
A tangled forest on a trackless shore; 
Here, where we stand, the savage sorcerer 

howls, 
The wild cat snarls, the stealthy gray wolf 

prowls, 
The slouching bear, perchance the tramp- 
ling moose 
Starts the brown squaw and scares her red 

pappoose; 
At every step the lurking foe is near; 
His Demons reign; God has no temple 

here ! 

Lift up your eyes ! behold these pictured 
walls ; 
Look where the flood of western glory falls 



MY AVIARY 



247 



Through the great sunflower disk of blaz- 
ing panes 

In ruby, saffron, azure, emerald stains; 

With reverent step the marble pavement 
tread 

Where our proud Mother's martyr-roll is 
read; 

See the great halls that cluster, gathering- 
round 

This lofty shrine with holiest memories 
crowned; 

See the fair Matron in her summer bower, 

Fresh as a rose in bright perennial flower; 

Read on her standard, always in the van, 

" Truth," — the one word that makes a 
slave a man; 

Think whose the hands that fed her altar- 
fires, 

Then count the debt we owe our scholar- 
sires ! 

Brothers, farewell ! the fast declining ray 
Fades to the twilight of our golden day; 
Some lesson yet our wearied brains may 

learn, 
Some leaves, perhaps, in life's thin volume 

turn. 
How few they seem as in our waning age 
We count them backwards to the title- 
page ! 
Oh let us trust with holy men of old 
Not all the story here begun is told; 
So the tired spirit, waiting to be freed, 
On life's last leaf with tranquil eye shall 

read 
By the pale glimmer of the torch reversed, 
Not Finis, but The End of Volume First! 



MY AVIARY 

Through my north window, in the wintry 

weather, — 
My airy oriel on the river shore, — 
I watch the sea-fowl as they flock together 
Where late the boatman flashed his 
dripping oar. 

The gull, high floating, like a sloop un- 
laden, 
Lets the loose water waft him as it will; 
The duck, round-breasted as a rustic- 
maiden, 
Paddles and plunges, busy, busy still. 



I see the solemn gulls in council sitting 
On some broad ice-floe pondering; long 
and late, 
While overhead the home-bound ducks are 
flitting, 
And leave the tardy conclave in debate, 

Those weighty questions in their breasts re- 
volving 
Whose deeper meaning science never 
learns, 
Till at some reverend elder's look dis- 
solving, 
The speechless senate silently adjourns. 

But when along the waves the shrill north- 
easter 
Shrieks through the laboring coaster's 
shrouds " Beware ! " 
The pale bird, kindling like a Christmas 
feaster 
When some wild chorus shakes the vinous 
air, 

Flaps from the leaden wave in fierce re- 
joicing, 
Feels heaven's dumb lightning thrill his 
torpid nerves, 
Now on the blast his whistling plumage 
poising, 
Now wheeling, whirling in fantastic 
curves. 

Such is our gull; a gentleman of leisure, 
Less fleshed than feathered ; bagged 
you '11 find him such ; 
His virtue silence; his employment pleas- 
ure; 
Not bad to look at, and not good for 
much. 

What of our duck ? He has some high- 
bred cousins, — 
His Grace the Canvas-back, My Lord 
the Brant, — 
Anas and Anser, — both served up by 
dozens, 
At Boston's Rocher, half-way to Na- 
hant. 

As for himself, he seems alert and thriv- 
ing* — 
Grubs up a living somehow — what, who 
knows ? 



248 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



Crabs ? mussels ? weeds ? — Look quick ! 
there 's one just diving ! 
Flop ! Splash ! his white breast glistens 
— down he goes ! 

And while he's under — just about a min- 
ute — 

I take advantage of the fact to say 
His fish}- carcase has no virtue in it 

The gunning idiot's worthless hire to pay. 

He knows you ! " sportsmen " from subur- 
ban alleys, 
Stretched under seaweed in the treacher- 
ous punt; 
Knows every lazy, shiftless lout that sallies 
Forth to waste powder — as he says, to 
" hunt." 

I watch you with a patient satisfaction, 
Well pleased to discount your predes- 
tined luck ; 
The float that figures in your sly transac- 
tion 
Will carry back a goose, but not a duck. 

Shrewd is our bird; not easy to outwit him ! 

Sharp is the outlook of those pin-head 
eyes; 
Still, he is mortal and a shot may hit him, 

One cannot always miss him if he tries. 

Look ! there 's a young one, dreaming not 
of danger; 
Sees a flat log come floating down the 
stream; 
Stares undismayed upon the harmless 
stranger ; 
Ah ! were all strangers harmless as they 
seem ! 

Habet ! a leaden shower his breast has shat- 
tered ; 
Vainly he flutters, not again to rise ; 
His soft white plumes along the waves are 
scattered; 
Helpless the wing that braved the tem- 
pest lies. 

He sees his comrades high above him flying 

To seek their nests among the island 

reeds; 

Strong is their flight; all lonely he is lying 

Washed by the crimsoned water as he 

bleeds. 



Thou who carest for the falling spar- 

row, 
Canst Thou the sinless sufferer's pang 

forget ? 
Or is thy dread account-book's page so 

narrow 
Its one long column scores thy creatures' 

debt? 

Poor gentle guest, by nature kindly 
cherished, 
A world grows dark with thee in blinding 
death ; 
One little gasp — thy universe has per- 
ished, 
Wrecked by the idle thief who stole thy 
breath ! 

Is this the whole sad story of creation, 
Lived by its breathing myriads o'er and 
o'er, — 
One glimpse of day, then black annihila- 
tion, — 
A sunlit passage to a sunless shore ? 

Give back our faith, ye mystery-solving 
lynxes ! 
Robe us once more in heaven-aspiring 
creeds ! 
Happier was dreaming Egypt with her 
sphinxes, 
The stony convent with its cross and 
beads ! 

How often gazing where a bird reposes, 
Rocked on the wavelets, drifting with 
the tide, 

1 lose myself in strange metempsychosis 

And float a sea-fowl at a sea-fowl's side ; 

From rain, hail, snow in feathery mantle 
muffled, 
Clear-eyed, strong-limbed, with keenest 
sense to hear 
My mate soft murmuring, who, with plumes 
unruffled, 
Where'er I wander still is nestling near; 

The great blue hollow like a garment o'er 
me; 
Space all unmeasured, unrecorded time; 
While seen with inward eye moves on be- 
fore me 
Thought's pictured train in wordless 
pantomime. 



AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB 



249 



A voice recalls me. — From my window 
turning 
I find myself a plumeless biped still; 
No beak, no claws, no sign of wings dis- 
cerning, — 
In fact with nothing bird-like but my 
quill. 



ON THE THRESHOLD 

INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF 
POEMS BY DIFFERENT AUTHORS 

An usher standing at the door 

I show my white rosette ; 
A smile of welcome, nothing more, 

Will pay my trifling debt; 
Why should I bid you idly wait 
Like lovers at the swinging gate ? 

Can I forget the wedding guest ? 

The veteran of the sea ? 
In vain the listener smites his breast, — 

" There was a ship," cries he ! 
Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale, 
He needs must listen to the tale. 

He sees the gilded throng within, 

The sparkling goblets gleam, 
The music and the merry din 

Through every window stream, 
But there he shivers in the cold 
Till all the crazy dream is told. 

Xot mine the graybeard's glittering eye 

That held his captive still 
To hold my silent prisoners by 

And let me have my will; 
Hay, I were like the three-years' child, 
To think you could be so beguiled ! 

My verse is but the curtain's fold 

That hides the painted scene, 
The mist by morning's ray unrolled 

That veils the meadow's green, 
The cloud that needs must drift away 
To show the rose of opening day. 

See, from the tinkling rill you hear 

In hollowed palm I bring 
These scanty drops, but ah, how near 

The founts that heavenward spring ! 
Thus, open wide the gates are thrown, 
And founts and flowers are all your own ! 



TO GEORGE PEABODY 

DANVERS, 1866 

Bankrupt ! our pockets inside out ! 

Empty of words to speak his praises ! 
Worcester and Webster up the spout ! 

Dead broke of laudatory phrases ! 
Yet why with flowery speeches tease, 

With vain superlatives distress him ? 
Has language better words than these ? 

THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD 
BLESS HIM ! 

A simple prayer — but words more sweet 
By human lips were never uttered, 

Since Adam left the country seat . 

Where angel wings around him flut- 
tered. 

The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, 
The children cluster to caress him, 

And every voice unbidden cries, 

THE FRIEND OF ALL HIS RACE, GOD 
BLESS HIM ! 



AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB 

A lovely show for eyes to see 

I looked upon this morning, — 
A bright-hued, feathered company 

Of nature's own adorning; 
But ah ! those minstrels would not sing 

A listening ear while I lent, — 
The lark sat still and preened his wing, 

The nightingale was silent; 
I longed for what they gave me not — 

Their warblings sweet and fluty, 
But grateful still for all I got 

I thanked them for their beauty. 

A fairer vision meets my view 

Of Claras, Margarets, Marys, 
In silken robes of varied hue, 

Like bluebirds and canaries; 
The roses blush, the jewels gleam, 

The silks and satins glisten, 
The black eyes flash, the blue eyes beam, 

We look — and then we listen: 
Behold the flock we cage to-night — 

Was ever such a capture ? 
To see them is a pure delight; 

To hear them — ah ! what rapture ! 



25° 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



Methinks I hear Delilah's laugh 

At Samson bound in fetters; 
" We captured ! " shrieks each lovelier half, 

" Men think themselves our betters ! 
We push the bolt, we turn the key 

On warriors, poets, sages, 
Too happy, all of them, to be 

Locked in our golden cages ! " 

Beware ! the boy with bandaged eyes 

Has flung away his blinder; 
He 's lost his mother — so he cries — 

And here he knows he '11 find her: 
The rogue ! 't is but a new device, — 

Look out for flying arrows 
Whene'er the birds of Paradise 

Are perched amid the sparrows! 



FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH 
BIRTHDAY 

DECEMBER 1 7, 1 877 

I believe that the copies of verses I've 

spun, 
Like Scheherezade's tales, are a thousand 

and one; 
You remember the story, — those mornings 

in bed, — 
'T was the turn of a copper, — a tale or a 

head. 

A doom like Scheherezade's falls upon me 

In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's de- 
cree: 

I 'm a florist in verse, and what would peo- 
ple say 

If I came to a banquet without my bou- 
quet ? 

It is trying, no doubt, when the company 

knows 
Just the look and the smell of each lily and 

rose, 
The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I 

bring, 
And the shape of the bunch and the knot 

of the string. 

Yes, — "the style is the man," and the 
nib of one's pen 

Makes the same mark at twenty, and three- 
score and ten; 



It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; 
Let one look at the cast he can tell you the 
mould. 

How we all know each other ! no use in 

disguise; 
Through the holes in the mask conies the 

flash of the eyes; 
We can tell by his — somewhat — each one 

of our tribe, 
As we know the old hat which we cannot 

describe. 

Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw 

you write, 
Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of 

Night, 
Though in buskin or slipper your song may 

be shod, 
Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod, 

We shall say, " You can't cheat us, — we 
know it is you," 

There is one voice like that, but there can- 
not be two, 

Maestro, whose chant like the dulcimer 
rings : 

And the woods will be hushed while the 
nightingale sings. 

And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, 

Whose temple hypsethral the planets shine 
through, 

Let us catch but five words from that mys- 
tical pen, 

We should know our one sage from all 
children of men. 

And he whose bright image no distance 
can dim, 

Through a hundred disguises we can't mis- 
take him, 

Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the 
edge 

(With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting 
wedge. 

Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos 

of %iin ? 
Do you knowxyour old friends when you 

see them\again ? 
Hosea was Sancho ! you Dons of Madrid, 
But Sancho that wielded the lance of the 

Cid! 



THE COMING ERA 



25 : 



And the wood-thrush of Essex, — you know 

whom I mean, 
Whose song echoes round us while he sits 

unseen, 
Whose heart-throbs of verse through our 

memories thrill 
Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze 

from the hill, 

So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, 
We hear but one strain and our verdict is 

sure, — 
Thee cannot elude us, — no further we 

search, — 
'T is Holy George Herbert cut loose from 

his church ! 

We think it the voice of a seraph that 

sings, — 
Alas ! we remember that angels have 

wings, — 
What story is this of the day of his birth ? 
Let him live to a hundred ! we want him 

on earth ! 

One life has been paid him (in gold) by 
the sun ; 

One account has been squared and another 
begun; 

But he never will die if he lingers be- 
low 

Till we 've paid him in love half the bal- 
ance we owe ! 



TWO SONNETS: HARVARD 

At the meeting of the New York Harvard 
Club. February 21, 1878. 

'•CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700 

To God's anointed and his chosen 

FLOCK : 

So ran the phrase the black-robed con- 
clave chose 
To guard the sacred cloisters that arose 
Like David's altar on Moriah's rock. 
Unshaken still those ancient arches mock 
The ram's-horn summons of the windy 

foes 
Who stand like Joshua's army while it 
blows 
And wait to see them toppling with the 
shock. 



Christ and the Church. Their church, 
whose narrow door 
Shut out the many, who if over bold 
Like hunted wolves were driven from 
the fold, 
Bruised with the flails these godly zealots 
bore, 
Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old 
Where echoed once Araunah's threshing- 
floor. 

1643 "VERITAS." 1878 

Truth: So the frontlet's older legend ran, 
On the brief record's opening page dis- 
played; 
Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were 
afraid 
Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of 

man 
By far Euphrates — where our sire began 
His search for truth, and, seeking, was 

betrayed — 
Might work new treason in their forest 
shade, 
Doubling the curse that brought life's 

shortened span. 
Nurse of the future, daughter of the past, 
That stern phylactery best becomes thee 

now: 
Lift to the morning star thy marble 
brow ! 
Cast thy brave truth on every warring 
blast ! 
Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden 
bough, 
And let thine earliest symbol be thy last ! 



THE COMING ERA 

They tell us that the Muse is soon to fly 
hence, 
Leaving the bowers of song that once 
were dear, 
Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, 
The groves of Pindus for the axe to 
clear. 

Optics will claim the wandering eye of 
fancy, 
Physics will grasp imagination's wings, 
Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, 
The workshop hammer where the min- 
strel sings. 



252 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



No more with laughter at Thalia's frolics 
Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run 
down, 
But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics 
Spout forth his watery science to the 
town. 

No more our foolish passions and affections 
The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall 
try, 
But, nobler far, a course of vivisections 
Teach what it costs a tortured brute to 
die. 

The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks 
hid, 
Shall tell the secret whence our being 
came ; 
The "chemist show us death is life's black 
oxide, 
Left when the breath no longer fans its 
flame. 

Instead of crack-brained poets in their at- 
tics 
Filling thin volumes with their flowery 
talk, 
There shall be books of wholesome mathe- 
matics ; 
The tutor with his blackboard and his 
chalk. 

No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet 
Shall woo to moonlight walks the rib- 
boned sex, 
But side by side the beaver and the bonnet 
Stroll, calmly pondering on some prob- 
lem's x. 

The sober bliss of serious calculation 

Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy 
drew, 

And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation, — 
One selfsame answer on the lips of two ! 

So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, 
Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, 

As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages 
They browse and munch the thistle crops 
of fact. 

And yet we 've sometimes found it rather 
pleasant 
To dream again the scenes that Shake- 
speare drew, — 



To walk the hill-side with the Scottish 
peasant 
Among the daisies wet with morning's 
dew; 

To leave awhile the daylight of the real, 
Led by the guidance of the master's 
hand, 
For the strange radiance of the far ideal, — 
" The light that never was on sea or 
land." 

Well, Time alone can lift the future's cur- 
tain, — 
Science may teach our children all she 
knows, 
But Love will kindle fresh young hearts, 
'tis certain, 
And June will not forget her blushing 
rose. 

And so, in spite of all that Time is bring- 
ing* — 
Treasures of truth and miracles of art, 
Beauty and Love will keep the poet sing- 
ing, 
And song still live, the science of the 
heart. 



IN RESPONSE 

Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, 
May, 1879. 

Such kindness ! the scowl of a cynic would 
soften, 
His pulse beat its way to some eloquent 
word, 
Alas ! my poor accents have echoed too 
often, 
Like that Pinafore music you 've some 
of you heard. 

Do you know me, dear strangers — the 
hundredth time comer 
At banquets and feasts since the days of 
my Spring ? 
Ah ! would I could borrow one rose of my 
Summer, 
But this is a leaf of my Autumn I bring. 

I look at your faces, — I 'm sure there are 
some from 
The three-breasted mother I count as my 



FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



253 



You think you remember the place you 
have come from, 
But how it has changed in the years that 
have flown ! 

Unaltered, 't is true, is the hall we call 
" Funnel," 
Still fights the "Old South" in the 
battle for life, 
But we 've opened our door to the West 
through the tunnel, 
And we 've cut off Fort Hill with our 
Amazon knife. 

You should see the new Westminster Bos- 
ton has builded, — 
Its mansions, its spires, its museums of 
arts, — 
You should see the great dome we have 
gorgeously gilded, — 
'Tis the light of our eyes, 't is the joy of 
our hearts. 

When first in his path a young asteroid 
found it, 
As he sailed through the skies with the 
stars in his wake, 
He thought 't was the sun, and kept 
circling around it 
Till Edison signalled, " You 've made a 
mistake." 

We are proud of our city, — her fast-grow- 
ing figure, 
The warp and the woof of her brain and 
her hands, — 
But we 're proudest of all that her heart 
has grown bigger, 
And warms with fresh blood as her gir- 
dle expands. 

One lesson the rubric of conflict has taught 
her: 
Though parted awhile by war's earth- 
rending shock, 
The lines that divide us are written in 
water, 
The love that unites us cut deep in the 
rock. 

As well might the Judas of treason en- 
deavor 
To write his black name on the disk of 
the sun 

As try the bright star-wreath that binds us ! 
to sever 



And blot the fair legend of "Many in 
One." 

We love you, tall sister, the stately, the 
splendid, — 
The banner of empire floats high on your 
towers, 
Yet ever in welcome your arms are ex- 
tended, — 
We share in your splendors, your glory 
is ours. 

Yes, Queen of the Continent ! All of us 
own thee, — 
The gold-freighted argosies flock at thy 
call, 
The naiads, the sea-nymphs have met to 
enthrone thee, 
But the Broadway of one is the Highway 
of all ! 

I thank you. Three words that can hardly 
be mended, 
Though phrases on phrases their elo- 
quence pile, 
If you hear the heart's throb with their 
eloquence blended, 
And read all they mean in a sunshiny 
smile. 



FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL 
CELEBRATION 

MAY 28, 1879 
I 

Enchanter of Erin, whose magic has 
bound us, 
Thy wand for one moment we fondly 
would claim, 
Entranced while it summons the phantoms 
around us 
That blush into life at the sound of thy 
name. 

The tell-tales of memory wake from their 
slumbers, — 
I hear the old song with its tender 
refrain, — 
What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced 
numbers ! 
What perfume of youth in each exquisite 
strain ! 



254 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



The home of my childhood comes back as 
a vision, — 
Hark ! Hark ! A soft chord from its 
song-haunted room, — 
'T is a morning of May, when the air is 
Elysian, — 
The syringa in bud and the lilac in 
bloom, — 

We are clustered around the " Clementi " 
piano, — 
There were six of us then, — there are 
two of us now, — 
She is singing — the girl with the silver 
soprano — 
How " The Lord of the Valley " was false 
to his vow; 

" Let Erin remember " the echoes are 
calling ; 
Through " The Vale of Avoca " the 
waters are rolled; 
" The Exile " laments while the night-dews 
are falling; 
" The Morning of Life " dawns again as 
of old. 

But ah ! those warm love-songs of fresh 
adolescence ! 
Around us such raptures celestial they 
flung 
That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its 
quintessence 
Through the seraph-toned lips of the 
maiden that sung ! 

Long hushed are the chords that my boy- 
hood enchanted 
As when the smooth wave by the angel 
was stirred, 
Yet still with their music is memory 
haunted, 
And oft in my dreams are their melodies 
heard. 

I feel like the priest to his altar return- 
ing* — 
The crowd that was kneeling no longer 
is there, 
The flame has died down, but the brands 
are still burning, 
And sandal and cinnamon sweeten the 
air. 



II 

The veil for her bridal young Summer is 
weaving 
In her azure-domed hall with its tapes- 
tried floor, 
And Spring the last tear-drop of May-dew 
is leaving 
On the daisy of Burns and the shamrock 
of Moore. 

How like, how unlike, as we view them to- 
gether, 
The song of the minstrels whose record 
we scan, — 
One fresh as the breeze blowing over the 
heather, 
One sweet as the breath from an oda- 
lisque's fan ! 

Ah, passion can glow mid a palace's splendor ; 
The cage does not alter the song of the 
bird ; 
And the curtain of silk has known whispers 
as tender 
As ever the blossoming hawthorn has 
heard. 

No fear lest the step of the soft-slippered 
Graces 
Should fright the young Loves from their 
warm little nest, 
For the heart of a queen, under jewels and 
laces, 
Beats time with the pulse in the peasant 
girl's breast ! 

Thrice welcome each gift of kind Nature's 
bestowing ! 
Her fountain heeds little the goblet we 
hold; 
Alike, when its musical waters are flowing, 
The shell from the seaside, the chalice 
of gold. 

The twins of the lyre to her voices had 
listened; 
Both laid their best gifts upon Liberty's 
shrine ; 
For Coila's loved minstrel the holly- wreath 
glistened; 
For Erin's the rose and the myrtle en- 
I twine. 



WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB 



2 55 



And while the fresh blossoms of summer 


His labors, — will they ever cease, — 


are braided 


With hand and tongue and pen ? 


For the sea-girdled, stream-silvered, 


Shall wearied Nature ask release 


lake-je welled isle, 


At threescore years and ten ? 


While her mantle of verdure is woven uu- 




faded, 


Our strength the clustered seasons tax, — 


While Shannon and Liffey shall dimple 


For him new life they mean; 


and smile, 


Like rods around the lictor's axe 




They keep him bright and keen. 


The land where the staff of Saint Patrick 




was planted, 


The wise, the brave, the strong, we know, — 


Where the shamrock grows green from 


We mark them here or there, 


the cliffs to the shore, 


But he, — we roll our eyes, and lo ! 


The land of fair maidens and heroes un- 


We find him everywhere ! 


daunted, 




Shall wreathe her bright harp with the 


With truth's bold cohorts, or alone, 


garlands of Moore ! 


He strides through error's field; 




His lance is ever manhood's own, 




His breast is woman's shield. 


TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE 


Count not his years while earth has need 
Of souls that Heaven inflames 




Witli sacred zeal to save, to lead, — 


APRIL 4, l88o 


Long live our dear Saint James ! 


I bring the simplest pledge of love, 




Friend of my earlier days; 




Mine is the hand without the glove, 


WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO 


The heart-beat, not the phrase. 


COMMERCIAL CLUB 


How few still breathe this mortal air 


JANUARY 14, l88o 


We called by school-boy names ! 




You still, whatever robe you wear, 


Chicago sounds rough to the maker of 


To me are always James. 


verse ; 




One comfort we have — Cincinnati sounds 


That name the kind apostle bore 


worse ; 


Who shames the sullen creeds, 


If we only w r ere licensed to say Chicagd ! 


Not trusting less, but loving more, 


But Worcester and Webster won't let us, 


And showing faith by deeds. 


you know. 


What blending thoughts our memories 


No matter, we songsters must sing as we 


share ! 


can; 


What visions yours and mine 


We can make some nice couplets with Lake 


Of May-days in whose morning air 


Michigan, 


The dews were golden wine, 


And what more resembles a nightingale's 


Of vistas bright with opening day, 


voice, 
Than the oily trisyllable, sweet Illinois ? 


Whose all-awakening sun 




Showed in life's landscape, far away, 


Your waters are fresh, while our harbor is 


The summits to be won ! 


salt, 




But we know you can't help it — it is n't 


The heights are gained. Ah, say not so 


your fault; 


For him who smiles at time, 


Our city is old and your city is new, 


Leaves his tired comrades down below, 


But the railroad men tell us we 're greener 


And only lives to climb ! 


than you. 



256 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



You have seen our gilt dome, and no doubt 

you 've been told 
That the orbs of the universe round it are 

rolled; 
But I '11 own it to you, and I ought to know 

best, 
That this is n't quite true of all stars of 

the West. 

You '11 go to Mount Auburn, — we '11 show 

you the track, — 
And can stay there, — unless you prefer to 

come back; 
And Bunker's tall shaft you can climb if 

you will, 
But you '11 puff like a paragraph praising 

a pill. 

You must see — but you have seen — our 
old Faneuil Hall, 

Our churches, our school- rooms, our sam- 
ple-rooms, all; 

And, perhaps, though the idiots must have 
their jokes, 

You have found our good people much like 
other folks. 

There are cities by rivers, by lakes, and by 

seas, 
Each as full of itself as a cheese-mite of 

cheese; 
And a city will brag as a game-cock will 

crow: 
Don't your cockerels at home — just a 

little, you know ? 

But we '11 crow for you now — here 's a 
health to the boys, 

Men, maidens, and matrons of fair Illi- 
nois, 

And the rainbow of friendship that arches 
its span 

From the green of the sea to the blue 
Michigan ! 



AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTEN- 
NIAL CELEBRATION 

MAY 26, 1880 

Sire, son, and grandson; so the century 
glides ; 
Three lives, three strides, three foot- 
prints in the sand; 



Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides 
Into the stillness of the far-off land ; 
How dim the space its little arc has 
spanned ! 

See on this opening page the names re- 
nowned 

Tombed in these records on our dusty 
shelves, 

Scarce on the scroll of living memory 
found, 

Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian 
delves; 

Shadows they seem ; ah, what are we 
ourselves ? 

Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Wil- 
lard, West, 
Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow, 
Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed, 
Asking of all things Whence and Why 

and How — 
What problems meet your larger vision 
now ? 

Has Gannett tracked the wild Aurora's 
path ? 

Has Bowdoin found his all-surrounding 
sphere ? 
What question puzzles ciphering Philo- 
math ? 

Could Williams make the hidden causes 
clear 

Of the Dark Day that filled the land 
with fear ? 

Dear ancient school-boys ! Nature taught 

to them 
The simple lessons of the star and 

flower, 
Showed them strange sights; how on a 

single stem, — 
Admire the marvels of Creative 

Power ! — 
Twin apples grew, one sweet, the other 

sour; 

How from the hill-top where our eyes be- 
hold 
In even ranks the plumed and bannered 
maize 
Range its long columns, in the days of old 
The live volcano shot its angry blaze, — 
Dead since the showers of Noah's watery 
days; 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 



257 



How, when the lightning split the mighty 
rock, 
The spreading fury of the shaft was 
spent ! 
How the young scion joined the alien stock, 
And when and where the homeless swal- 
lows went 
To pass the winter of their discontent. 

Scant were the gleanings in those years of 
dearth; 
No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil 
bones 
That slumbered, waiting for their second 
birth; 
No Lyell read the legend of the stones; 
Science still pointed to her empty 
thrones. 

Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth un- 
known, 
Herschel looked heavenwards in the 
starlight pale; 
Lost in those awful depths he trod alone, 
Laplace stood mute before the lifted 

veil; 
While home-bred Humboldt trimmed 
his toy ship's sail. 

No mortal feet these loftier heights had 
gained 

Whence the wide realms of Nature we 
descry; 
In vain their eyes our longing fathers 
strained 

To scan with wondering gaze the sum- 
mits high 

That far beneath their children's foot- 
paths lie. 

Smile at their first small ventures as we 
may, 

The school-boy's copy shapes the schol- 
ar's hand, 
Their grateful memory fills our hearts to- 
day; 

Brave, hopeful, wise, this bower of peace 
they planned, 

While war's dread ploughshare scarred 
the suffering land. 

Child of our children's children yet un- 
born, 
When on this yellow page you turn your 
eyes, 



Where the brief record of this May-day 

morn 
In phrase antique and faded letters lies, 
How vague, how pale our flitting ghosts 

will rise ! 

Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and 
red, 
For us the fields were green, the skies 
were blue, 
Though from our dust the spirit long has 
fled, 
We lived, we loved, we toiled, we 

dreamed like you, 
Smiled at our sires and thought how 
much we knew. 

Oh might our spirits for one hour return, 
When the next century rounds its hun- 
dredth ring, 
All the strange secrets it shall teach to 
learn, 
To hear the larger truths its years shall 

bring, 
Its wiser sages talk, its sweeter minstrels 
sing; ! 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 

Read at the Centennial Celebration of the 
foundation of Phillips Academy, Andover. 

1778-1878 

These hallowed precincts, long to mem- 
ory dear, 

Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw 
near; 

With softer gales the opening leaves are 
fanned, 

With fairer hues the kindling flowers ex- 
pand, 

The rose-bush reddens with the blush of 
June, 

The groves are vocal with their minstrels' 
tune, 

The mighty elm, beneath whose arching 
shade 

The wandering children of the forest 
strayed, 

Greets the bright morning in its bridal 
dress, 

And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn 
to bless. 



^ 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



Is it an idle dream that nature shares 
Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our 

cares ? 
Is there no summons when, at morning's 

call, 
The sable vestments of the darkness fall ? 
Does not meek evening's low-voiced Ave 

blend 
With the soft vesper as its notes ascend ? 
Is there no whisper in the perfumed air 
When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare ? 
Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice ? 
Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's 

voice ? 
No silent message when from midnight 

skies 
Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes ? 

Or shift the mirror; say our dreams 

diffuse 
O'er life's pale landscape their celestial 

hues, 
Lend heaven the rainbow it has never 

known, 
And robe the earth in glories not its own, 
Sing their own music in the summer breeze, 
With fresher foliage clothe the stately 

trees, 
Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye 
And spread a bluer azure on the sky, — 
Blest be the power that works its lawless 

will 
And finds the weediest patch an Eden 

still; 
No walls so fair as those our fancies build, — 
No views so bright as those our visions 

gild! 

So ran my lines, as pen and, paper met, 
The truant goose-quill travelling like Plan- 

chette ; 
Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways 
Full many a slipshod line, alas ! betrays; 
Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few 
Have builded worse — a great deal — than 

they knew. 

What need of idle fancy to adorn 
Our mother's birthplace on her birthday 

morn ? 
Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, 
From these green boughs her new-fledged 

birds take wing, 
These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, 
In this old nest the brood is ever young. 



If some tired wanderer, resting from his 

flight, 
Amid the gay young choristers alight, 
These gather round him, mark his faded 

plumes 
That faintly still the far-off grove per- 
fumes, 
And listen, wondering if some feeble note 
Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat: — 
I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple 

knew, 
What tune is left me, fit to sing to you ? 
Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, 
But let my easy couplets slide along; 
Much could I tell you that you know too 

well; 
Much I remember, but I will not tell; 
Age brings experience; graybeards oft are 

wise, 
But oh ! how sharp a youngster's ears and 

eyes ! 

My cheek was bare of adolescent down 
When first I sought the academic town; 
Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, 
Big with its filial and parental load; 
The frequent hills, the lonely woods are 

past, 
The school-boy's chosen home is reached 

at last. 
I see it now, the same unchanging spot, 
The swinging gate, the little garden plot, 
The narrow yard, the rock that made its 

floor, 
The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished 

door, 
The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, 
The strange, new faces, kind, but grave 

and still; 
Two, creased with age, — or what I then 

called age, — 
Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; 
One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet 
As the first snowdrop, which the sunbeams 

greet ; 
One, the last nursling's; slight she was, 

and fair, 
Her smooth white forehead warmed with 

auburn hair; 
Last came the virgin Hymen long had 

spared, 
Whose daily cares the grateful household 

shared, 
Strong, patient, humble; her substantial 

frame 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 



2 59 



Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to 
name. 
Brave, but with effort, had the school- 
boy come 
To the cold comfort of a stranger's home ; 
How like a dagger to my sinking heart 
Came the dry summons, " It is time to part; 
Good-by ! " " Goo — ood-by ! " one fond 

maternal kiss. . . . 
Homesick as death ! Was ever pang like 

this? ... 
Too young as yet with willing feet to stray 
From the tame fireside, glad to get away, — 
Too old to let my watery grief appear, — 
And what so bitter as a swallowed tear ! 
One figure still my vagrant thoughts 
pursue ; 
First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you ? 
Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how 
You learned it all, — are you an angel now, 
Or tottering gently down the slope of years, 
Your face grown sober in the vale of tears ? 
Forgive my freedom if you are breathing 

still; 
If in a happier world, I know you will. 
You were a school-boy — what beneath the 

sun 
So like a monkey ? I was also one. 

Strange, sure enough, to see what curi- 
ous shoots 
The nursery raises from the study's roots ! 
In those old days the very, very good 
Took up more room — & little — than they 

should ; 
Something too much one's eyes encountered 

then 
Of serious youth and funeral-visage d men; 
The solemn elders saw life's mournful 

half,— 
Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to 

laugh, 
Drollest of buffos, Nature's odd protest, 
A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. 
Kind, faithful Nature ! While the sour- 
eyed Scot — 
Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot — 
Talks only of his preacher and his kirk, — 
Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday 

work, — 
Praying and fasting till his meagre face 
Gains its due length, the genuine sign of 

grace, — 
An Ayrshire mother in the land of Knox 
Her embryo poet in his cradle rocks; — 
Nature, long shivering in her dim eclipse, 



Steals in a sunbeam to those baby lips; 
So to its home her banished smile returns, 
And Scotland sweetens with the song of 
Burns ! 

The morning came; I reached the classic 
hall; 
A clock-face eyed me, staring from the 

wall ; 
Beneath its hands a printed line I read: 
Youth is life's seed-time: so the clock- 
face said: 
Some took its counsel, as the 

showed, — 

Sowed, — their wild oats, — and reaped as 
they had sowed. 
How all comes back ! the upward slant- 
ing floor, — 
The masters' thrones that flank the central 

door, — 
The long, outstretching alleys that divide 
The rows of desks that stand on either 

side, — 
The staring boys, a face to every desk, 
Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, pic- 
turesque. 
Grave is the Master's look; his forehead 
wears 
Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying 

cares; 
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, 
His most of all whose kingdom is a school. 
Supreme he sits; before the awful frown 
That bends his brows the boldest eye goes 

down ; 
Not more submissive Israel heard and 

saw 
At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. 
Less stern he seems, who sits in equal 
state 
On the twin throne and shares the empire's 

weight ; 
Around his lips the subtle life that plays 
Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting 

phrase ; ■ 
A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, 
Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not 

so safe; 
Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, 
But to forgive him. God forgive us all ! 

One yet remains, whose well-remembered 
name 
Pleads in my grateful heart its tender 
claim: 



260 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



His was the charm magnetic, the bright 

look 
That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest 

book; 
A loving soul to every task he brought 
That sweetly mingled with the lore he 

taught; 
Sprung from a saintly race that never could 
From youth to age be anything but good, 
His few brief years in holiest labors spent, 
Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had 

lent. 
Kindest of teachers, studious to divine 
Some hint of promise in my earliest line, 
These faint and faltering words thou canst 

not hear 
Throb from a heart that holds thy memory 
dear. 
As to the traveller's eye the varied plain 
Shows through the window of the flying 

train, 
A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, 
A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, 
A tangled wood, a glittering stream that 

flows 
Through the cleft summit where the cliff 

once rose, 
All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, 
Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hill- 
side, stream, — 
So, as we look behind us, life appears, 
Seen through the vista of our bygone years. 
Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled do- 
main, 
Some vanished shapes the hues of life re- 
tain; 
Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes 
From the vague mists in memory's path 

they rise. 
So comes his blooming image to my view, 
The friend of joyous days when life was 

new, 
Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth un- 

chilled, 
No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled, 
Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering 

fold, 
Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled. 
His the frank smile I vainly look to greet, 
His the warm grasp my clasping hand 

should meet; 
How would our lips renew their school-boy 

talk, 
Our feet retrace the old familiar walk ! 



For thee no more earth's cheerful morning 
shines 

Through the green fringes of the tented 
pines; 

Ah me ! is heaven so far thou canst not 
hear, 

Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, 

A fair young presence, bright with morn- 
ing's glow, 

The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago ? 
Yes, fifty years, with all their circling 
suns, 

Behind them all my glance reverted runs; 

Where now that time remote, its griefs, its 
joys, 

Where are its gray-haired men, its bright- 
haired boys ? 

Where is the patriarch time could hardly 
tire, — 

The good old, wrinkled, immemorial 
" squire " ? 

(An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed 
swan, 

Not every day our eyes may look upon.) 

Where the tough champion who, with Cal- 
vin's sword, 

In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord ? 

Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, 
austere, 

Whose voice like music charmed the listen- 
ing ear, 

Whose light rekindled, like the morning 
star 

Still shines upon us through the gates ajar ? 

Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed 
man, 

Whose care-worn face my wandering eyes 
would scan, — 

His features wasted in the lingering strife 

With the pale foe that drains the student's 
life ? 

Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, 
saint, 

Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck 
of taint; 

He broached his own opinion, which is not 

Lightly to be forgiven or forgot; 

Some riddle's point, — I scarce remember 
now, — 

Homof-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. 

(If the unlettered greatly wish to know 

Where lies the difference betwixt oi and o, 

Those of the curious who have time may 
search 



THE SCHOOL-BOY 



261 



Among the stale conundrums of their 

church.) 
Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, 
And for his modes of faith I little cared, — 
I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their 

deeds, 
Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds. 

Why should we look one common faith 

to find, 
Where one in every score is color-blind ? 
If here on earth they know not red from 

green, 
Will they see better into things unseen ! 
Once more to time's old graveyard I 

return 
And scrape the moss from memory's 

pictured urn. 
Who, in these days when all things go by 

steam, 
Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse 

team ? 
Its sturdy driver, — who remembers him ? 
Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, 
Who left our hill-top for a new abode 
And reared his sign- post farther down the 

road ? 
Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine 
Do the young bathers splash and think 

they 're clean ? 
Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, 
Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, 
And bring to younger ears the story back 
Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimac ? 
Are there still truant feet that stray beyond 
These circling bounds to Pomp's or 

Haggett's Pond, 
Or where the legendary name recalls 
The forest's earlier tenant, — " Deerjump 

Falls " ? 
Yes, every nook these youthful feet ex- 
plore, 
Just as our sires and grandsires did of 

yore; 
So all life's opening paths, where nature 

led 
Their father's feet, the children's children 

tread. 
Roll the round century's fivescore years 

away, 
Call from our storied past that earliest day 
When great Eliphalet (I can see him 

now, — 
Big name, big frame, big voice, and beet- 
ling brow), 



Then young Eliphalet, — ruled the rows of 

boys 
In homespun gray or old-world cordu- 
roys, — 
And save for fashion's whims, the benches 

show 
The selfsame youths, the very boys we 

know. 
Time works strange marvels: since I trod 

the green 
And swung the gates, what wonders I have 

seen ! 
But come what will, — the sky itself may 

fall, — 
As things of course the boy accepts them 

all. 
The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of 

flame, 
For daily use our travelling millions claim ; 
The face we love a sunbeam makes our 

own; 
No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's 

groan ; 
What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness 

lay 
Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to 

the day ! 
Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my 

lord, 
The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the 

sword; 
Great is the goosequill, say we all; Amen ! 
Sometimes the spade is mightier than the 

pen; 
It shows where Babel's terraced walls were 

raised, 
The slabs that cracked when Nimrod's 

palace blazed, 
Unearths Mycense, rediscovers Troy, — 
Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. 
A new Prometheus tips our wands with 

fire, 
A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering 

wire, 
Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds out- 
run 
And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the 

sun, — 
So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place 
For those dim fictions known as time and 

space. 
Still a new miracle each year supplies, — 
See at his work the chemist of the skies, 
Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays 
And steals the secret of the solar blaze ; 



262 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



Hush ! while the window-rattling bugles 

play 
The nation's airs a hundred miles away ! 
That wicked phonograph ! hark ! how it 

swears ! 
Turn it again and make it say its prayers ! 
And was it true, then, what the story said 
Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head ? 
While wondering Science stands, herself 

perplexed 
At each day's miracle, and asks "What 

next?" 
The immortal boy, the coming heir of all, 
Springs from his desk to " urge the flying 

ball," 
Cleaves with his bending oar the glassy 

waves, 
With sinewy arm the dashing current 

braves, 
The same bright creature in these haunts 

of ours 
That Eton shadowed with her "antique 

towers." 

Boy ! Where is he ? the long-limbed 

youth inquires, 
Whom his rough chin with manly pride 

inspires; 
Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows, 
When the bright hair is white as winter 

snows, 
When the dim eye has lost its lambent 

flame, 
Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy 

name ! 
Nor think the difference mighty as it seems 
Between life's morning and its evening 

dreams; 
Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and 

toys; 
In earth's wide school-house all are girls 

and boys. 

Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. 

Who 
Can guess beforehand what his pen will do ? 
Too light my strain for listeners such as 

these, 
Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech 

shall please. 
Is he not here whose breath of holy song 
Has raised the downcast eyes of Faith so 

long ? 
Are they not here, the strangers in your 

gates, 



For whom the wearied ear impatient 

waits, — 
The large-brained scholars whom their 

toils release, — 
The bannered heralds of the Prince of 

Peace ? 

Such was the gentle friend whose youth 

unblamed 
In years long past our student-benches 

claimed ; 

Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, 
Lives in the labors of his riper age; 
Such he whose record time's destroying 

march 

Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch: 
Not to the scanty phrase of measured song. 
Cramped in its fetters, names like these 

belong; 
One ray they lend to gild my slender 

line, — 
Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than 

mine. 

Homes of our sires, where Learning's 

temple rose, 
While yet they struggled with their banded 

foes, 
As in the West thy century's sun descends, 
One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. 
Darker and deeper though the shadows 

fall 
From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's 

wall, 
Though Pope and Pagan re-array their 

hosts, 
And her new armor youthful Science 

boasts, 
Truth, for whose altar rose this holy 

shrine, 
Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of 

thine ; 
No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, 
No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian 

brow, 
But Faith shall smile to find her sister free, 
And nobler manhood draw its life from 

thee. 

Long as the arching skies above thee 

spread, 
As on thy groves the dews of heaven are 

shed, 
With currents widening still from year to 

year, 



OUR HOME — OUR COUNTRY 



263 



And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, 

clear, 
Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred 

hill — 
Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill ! 



THE SILENT MELODY 

"Bring me my broken harp," he said; 

" We both are wrecks, — but as ye 
will,— 
Though all its ringing tones have fled, 

Their echoes linger round it still ; 
It had some golden strings, I know, 
But that was long — how long ! — ago. 

" I cannot see its tarnished gold, 
I cannot hear its vanished tone, 

Scarce can my trembling fingers hold 
The pillared frame so long their own; 

We both are wrecks, — awhile ago 

It had some silver strings, I know, 

" But on them Time too long has played 
The solemn strain that knows no change, 

And where of old my fingers strayed 

The chords they find are new and 
strange, — 

Yes ! iron strings, — I know, — I know, — 

We both are wrecks of long ago. 

I We both are wrecks, — a shattered 
pair, — 
Strange to ourselves in time's dis- 
guise . . . 
What say ye to the lovesick air 

That Drought the tears from Marian's 
eyes? 
Ay ! trust me, — under breasts of snow 
Hearts could be melted long ago ! 

" Or will ye hear the storm-song's crash 

That from his dreams the soldier woke, 
Audbade him face the lightning flash 
When battle's cloud in thunder 
broke ? . . . 
Wrecks, — nought but wrecks ! — the time 

was when 
We two were worth a thousand men ! " 

And so the broken harp they bring 

With pitying smiles that none could 
blame; 



Alas ! there 's not a single string 

Of all that filled the tarnished frame ! 
But see ! like children overjoyed, 
His fingers rambling through the void ! 



I 



Ay . . . mine ancient 



clasp thee ! 
lyre . . . 

Nay, guide my wandering fingers. . . . 
There ! 
They love to dally with the wire 

As Isaac played with Esau's hair. . . . 
Hush ! ye shall hear the famous tune 
That Marian called the Breath of June ! " 

And so they softly gather round: 
Rapt in his tuneful trance he seems: 

His fingers move : but not a sound ! 
A silence like the song of dreams. . . . 

" There ! ye have heard the air," he cries, 

" That brought the tears from Marian's 
eyes ! " 

Ah, smile not at his fond conceit, 
Nor deem his fancy wrought in vain; 

To him the unreal sounds are sweet, — 
No discord mars the silent strain 

Scored on life's latest, starlit page — 

The voiceless melody of age. 

Sweet are the lips of all that sing, 

When Nature's music breathes unsought, 

But never yet could voice or string 
So truly shape our tenderest thought 

As when by life's decaying fire 

Our fingers sweep the stringless lyre ! 



OUR HOME — OUR COUNTRY 

FOR THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRA- 
TION OF THE SETTLEMENT OF CAM- 
BRIDGE, MASS., DECEMBER 28, l88o 

Your home was mine, — kind Nature's 
gift; 

My love no years can chill; 
In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift, 
The snowdrop hides beneath the drift, 

A living blossom still. 

Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres, 
Hushed all their golden strings; 

One lay the coldest bosom fires, 

One song, one only, never tires 
While sweet-voiced memory sings. 



264 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



No spot so lone but echo knows 

That dear familiar strain; 
In tropic isles, on arctic snows, 
Through burning lips its music flows 

And rings its fond refrain. 

From Pisa's tower my straining sight 
Roamed wandering leagues away, 
When lo ! a frigate's banner bright, 
The starry blue, the red, the white, 
In far Livorno's bay. 

Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart, 

Forth springs the sudden tear; 
The ship that rocks by yonder mart 
Is of my land, my life, a part, — 
Home, home, sweet home, is here ! 

Fades from my view the sunlit scene, — 

My vision spans the waves ; 
I see the elm-encircled green, 
The tower, — the steeple, — and, between, 

The field of ancient graves. 

There runs the path my feet would tread 

When first they learned to stray; 
There stands the gambrel roof that spread 
Its quaint old angles o'er my head 
When first I saw the day. 

The sounds that met my boyish ear 

My inward sense salute, — 
The woodnotes wild I loved to hear, — 
The robin's challenge, sharp and clear, — 

The breath of evening's flute. 

The faces loved from cradle days, — 

Unseen, alas, how long ! 
As fond remembrance round them plays, 
Touched with its softening moonlight rays, 

Through fancy's portal throng. 

And see ! as if the opening skies 

Some angel form had spared 
Us wingless mortals to surprise, 
The little maid with light-blue eyes, 

White necked and golden haired ! 



So rose the picture full in view 

I paint in feebler song; 
Such power the seamless banner knew 
Of red and white and starry blue 

For exiles banished long". 



Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men 

To guard its heaven-bright folds, 
Blest are the eyes that see again 
That banner, seamless now, as then, — 
The fairest earth beholds ! 

Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft 

In that unfading hour, 
And fancy leads my footsteps oft 
Up the round galleries, high aloft 

On Pisa's threatening tower. 

And still in Memory's holiest shrine 

I read with pride and joy, 
" For me those stars of empire shine ; 
That empire's dearest home is mine; 

I am a Cambridge boy ! " 



POEM 

AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 
DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS 
MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 8, l88l 

Three paths there be where Learning's 

favored sons, 
Trained in the schools which hold her fa- 
vored ones, 
Follow their several stars with separate 

aim ; 
Each has its honors, each its special claim. 
Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East, 
First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest; 
The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong, 
Full armed to battle for the right, — or 

wrong; 
Last, he whose calling finds its voice in 

deeds, 
Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs. 
Each has his gifts, his losses and his 

gains, 
Each his own share of pleasures and of 

pains ; 
No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued 
Finds a smooth pathway all with roses 

strewed; 
Trouble belongs to man of woman born, — 
Tread where he may, his foot will find its 

thorn. 

Of all the guests at life's perennial feast, 
Who of her children sits above the Priest ? 
For him the broidered robe, the carven 

seat, 



MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY DINNER 



265 



Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet, 

For him the incense fumes, the wine is 
poured, 

Himself a God, adoring and adored ! 

His the first welcome when our hearts 
rejoice, 

His in our dying ear the latest voice, 

Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend, 

Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly 
friend ! 
Where is the meddling hand that dares 
to probe 

The secret grief beneath his sable robe ? 

How grave his port ! how every gesture 
tells 

Here truth abides, here peace forever 
dwells ; 

Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain ; 

Faith asks no questions; silence, ye pro- 
fane ! 
Alas ! too oft while all is calm without 

The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt ; 

This is the mocking sceptre, scarce con- 
cealed 

Behind tradition's bruised and battered 
shield. 

He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, 

Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed 
page, 

The wondrous deeds that priests and pro- 
phets saw 

Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, 

And on the soil where saints and martyrs 
trod 

Altars new builded to the Unknown God; 

His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn, — 

He dares not limp, but ah ! how sharp his 
thorn ! 
Yet while God's herald questions as he 
reads 

The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds, 

Drops from his ritual the exploded verse, 

Blots from its page the Athanasian curse, 

Though by the critic's dangerous art per- 
plexed, 

His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text; 

That shining guidance doubt can never 
mar, — 

The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's 
star ! 

Strong is the moral blister that will draw 
Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law 
Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to 



Truth in the scale that holds his promised 
fee. 

What ! Has not every lie its truthful 
side, 

Its honest fraction, not to be denied ? 

Per contra, — ask the moralist, — in sooth 

Has not a lie its share in every truth ? 

Then what forbids an honest man to try 

To find the truth that lurks in every lie, 

And just as fairly call on truth to yield 

The lying fraction in its breast concealed ? 

So the worst rogue shall claim a ready 
friend 

His modest virtues boldly to defend, 

And he who shows the record of a saint 

See himself blacker than the devil could 
paint. 
What struggles to his captive soul be- 
long 

Who loves the right, yet combats for the 
wrong, 

Who fights the battle he would fain re- 
fuse, 

And wins, well knowing that he ought to 
lose, 

Who speaks with glowing lips and look 
sincere 

In spangled words that make the worse 
appear 

The better reason; who, behind his mask, 

Hides his true self and blushes at his 
task, — 

What quips, what quillets cheat the in- 
ward scorn 

That mocks such triumph? Has he not 
his thorn ? 
Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life 
the prize, 

Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic 
eyes 

See fault in him who bravely dares de- 
fend 

The cause forlorn, the wretch without a 
friend ? 

Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's 
choice, 

Wrong has its rights and claims a cham- 
pion's voice ; 

Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak, 

For the dumb lips the fluent pleader 
speak; — 

When with warm " rebel " blood our 
street was dyed 

Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' 
side ? 



266 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



No greener civic wreath can Adams claim, 
No brighter page the youthful Quincy's 



How blest is he who knows no meaner 

strife 
Than Art's long battle with the foes of 

life! 
No doubt assails him, doing still his best, 
And trusting kindly Nature for the rest; 
No mocking conscience tears the thin dis- 
guise 
That wraps his breast, and tells him that 

he lies. 
He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his 

head 
And smiles a welcome from his weary 

bed; 
He speaks: what music like the tones that 

tell, 
" Past is the hour of danger, — all is 

well ! " 
How can he feel the petty stings of grief 
Whose cheering presence always brings 

relief ? 
What ugly dreams can trouble his repose 
Who yields himself to soothe another's 

woes ? 
Hour after hour the busy day has found 
The good physician on his lonely round; 
Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door, 
He knows, his journeys every path ex- 
plore, — 
Where the cold blast has struck with 

deadly chill 
The sturdv dweller on the storm-swept 

hill," 
Where by the stagnant marsh the sicken- 
ing gale 
Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the 

vale, 
Where crushed and maimed the bleeding 

victim lies, 
Where madness raves, where melancholy 

sighs, 
And where the solemn whisper tells too 

plain 
That all his science, all his art, were vain. 
How sweet his fireside when the day is 

done 
And cares have vanished with the setting 

sun ! 
Evening at last its hour of respite brings 
And on his couch his weary length he 

flings. 



Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind, 
Lulled by an opiate Art could never find; 
Sweet be thy slumber, — thou hast earned 

it well, — 

Pleasant thy dreams ! Clang ! goes the 

midnight bell ! 

Darkness and storm ! the home is far 

away 

That waits his coming ere the break of clay; 

The s'now-clad pines their wintry plumage 

toss, 

Doubtful the frozen stream his road must 

cross ; 
Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have 

shut 
The hardy woodman in his mountain hut, 
Why should thy softer frame the tempest 

brave ? 
Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or 

save ? 
Look ! read the answer in his patient 

eyes, — 
For him no other voice when suffering 

cries ; 

Deaf to the gale that all around him blows, 

A feeble whisper calls him, — and he goes. 

Or seek the crowded city, — summer's 

heat 

Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow 

street, 

Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the enven- 
omed air, 

Unstirred the yellow flag that says " Be- 
ware ! " 
Tempt not thy fate, — one little moment's 

breath 
Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of 

death ; 
Thou at whose door the gilded chariots 

stand, 
Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the 

miser's hand, 
Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away 
That life so precious; let a meaner prey 
Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless 
Those happier homes that need thy care no 
less ! 
Smiling he listens; has he then a charm 
Whose magic virtues peril can disarm ? 
No safeguard his ; no amulet he wears, 
Too well he knows that Nature never 

spares 
Her truest servant, powerless to defend 
From her own weapons her unshrinking 
friend. 



MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY DINNER 



267 



He dares the fate the bravest well might 

shun, 

Nor asks reward save only Heaven's 
" Well done ! " 
Such are the toils, the perils that he 
knows, 
Days without rest and nights without re- 
pose, 

Yet all unheeded for the love he bears 
His art, his kind, whose every grief he 
snares. 
Harder than these to know how small 
the part 
Nature's proud empire yields to striving- 
Art; 
How, as the tide that rolls around the 

sphere 
Laughs at the mounds that delviug arms 

uprear, — 
Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but 

still 
Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will, 
Comes at its ordered season, night or noon, 
Led by the silver magnet of the moon, — 
So life's vast tide forever comes and goes, 
Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows. 
Hardest of all, when Art has done her 
best, 
To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest; 
The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts 

unknown, 
Kills off the patients Science thought her 

own; 
Towns from a nostrum-vender get their 

name, 
Fences and walls the cure-all drug pro- 
claim, 
Plasters and pads the willing world be- 
guile, 
Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile, 
Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks 
His new Pandora's globule-holding box, 
And as King George inquired, with puzzled 

grin, 
I How — how the devil get the apple in ? " 
So we ask how, — with wonder-opening 

eyes, — 
Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies! 
Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily 
tasks 
That suffering Nature from her servant 

asks ; 
His the kind office dainty menials scorn, 
His path how hard, — at every step a 
thorn ! 



What does his saddening, restless slavery 

buy? 
What save a right to live, a chance to die, — 
To live companion of disease and pain, 
To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain ? 
Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades,— 
From Memphian courts, from Delphic col- 
onnades, 
Speak in the tones that Persia's despot 

heard 
When nations treasured every golden word 
The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas, 
From the far isle that held Hippocrates; 
And thou, best gift that Pergamus could 

send 
Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend, 
Master of masters, whose unchallenged 

sway 
Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey; 
Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawn- 
ing times 
Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's 

rhymes, 
And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe 
The better share of all the best we know, 
In every land an ever-growing train, 
Since wakening Science broke her rusted 

chain, — 
Speak from the past, and say what prize 

was sent 
To crown the toiling years so freely spent ! 
List while they speak: 

In life's uneven road 
Our willing hands have eased our brothers' 

load; 
One forehead smoothed, one pang of tor- 
ture less, 
One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to 

bless, 
The smile brought back to fever's parching 

lips, 
The light restored to reason in eclipse, 
Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand 
Snatched from the dread destroyer's waste- 
ful hand; 
Such were our simple records day by day, 
For gains like these we wore our lives away. 
In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought, 
But bread from heaven attending angels 

brought ; 
Pain was our teacher, speaking to the 

heart, 
Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art; 
Our lesson learned, we reached the peace- 
ful shore 



268 



THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS 



Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no 

more, — 
These gracious words our welcome, our 

reward: 
Ye served your brothers; ye have served 

your Lord ! 



HARVARD 

[Read at Commencement Dinner, July 1, 
1880. The author had that day received 
from his Alma Mater the degree of Doctor of 

Laws.] 

Changeless in beauty, rose-hues on her 
cheek, 

Old walls, old trees, old memories all 
around 

Lend her unfading youth their charm an- 
tique 

And fill with mystic light her holy ground. 

Here the lost dove her leaf of promise 
found 

While the new morning showed its blush- 
ing streak 

Far o'er the waters she had crossed to seek 

The bleak, wild shore in billowy forests 
drowned. 

Mother of scholars ! on thy rising throne 

Thine elder sisters look benignant down; 

England's proud twins, and they whose 
cloisters own 



The fame of Abelard, the scarlet gown 
That laughing Rabelais wore, not yet out- 
grown — 

And on thy forehead place the New World's 
crown. 



RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME 

From the first gleam of morning to the 
gray 
Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled ! 
In woven pictures all its changes told, 
Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray, 
Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day, 
Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's 

gold, 
And all the graven hours grow dark and 
cold 
Where late the glowing blaze of noontide 

lay. 

Ah ! the warm blood runs wild in youthful 

veins, — 

Let me no longer play with painted fire: 

New songs for new-born days ! I would 

not tire 

The listening ears that wait for fresher 

strains 

In phrase new -moulded, new -forged 

rhythmic chains, 

With plaintive measures from a worn-out 

lyre. 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



AT MY FIRESIDE 

Alone, beneath the darkened sky, 

With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, 
heap the spoils of years gone by, 
And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, 
Like drift-wood brands that glimmering 
He, 
Before the ashes hide the fire. 



Let not these slow declining days 
The rosy light of dawn outlast; 
Still round my lonely hearth it plays, 
And gilds the east with borrowed rays, 
While memory's mirrored sunset blaze 
Flames on the windows of the past. 
March 1, 1888. 



AT THE SATURDAY CLUB 

About the time when these papers [The Au- 
tocrat] were published, the Saturday Club was 
founded, or, rather, found itself in existence, 
without any organization, almost without par- 
entage. It was natural enough that such men 
as Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, Peirce, with 
Hawthorne. Motley. Sumner, when within 
reach, and others who would be good com- 
pany for them, shovdd meet and dine to- 
gether once in a while, as they did. in point of 
fact, every month, and as some who are still 
living, with other and newer members, still 
meet and dine. If some of them had not ad- 
niired each other they would have been ex- 
ceptions in the world of letters and science. 
The club deserves being remembered for hav- 
ing no constitution or by-laws, for making no 
speeches, reading no papers, observing no cere- 
monies, coming and going at will without 
remark, and acting out. though it did not pro- 
claim the motto. " Shall I not take mine ease 
in mine inn ? " There was and is nothing of 
the Bohemian element about this club, but it 
has had many good times and not a little good 
talkina - . 



269 



This is our place of meeting; opposite 
That towered and pillared building: look 

at it; 
King's Chapel in the Second George's day, 
Rebellion stole its regal name away, — 
Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last 
The poisoned name of our provincial past 
Had lost its ancient venom; then once more 
Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. 
(So let rechristened North Street, when it 

can, 
Bring back the days of Marlborough and 

Queen Anne !) 
Next the old church your wandering eye 

will meet — 
A granite pile that stares upon the street — 
Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have 

said 
Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's 

head, 
Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by 
Say Boston always held her head too high. 
Turn half-way round, and let your look 

survey 
The white facade that gleams across the 

way,— 
The many-windowed building, tall and wide, 
The palace-inn that shows its northern side 
In grateful shadow when the sunbeams 

beat 
The granite wall in summer's scorching 

heat. 
This is the place; whether its name you 

spell 
Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. 
Would I could steal its echoes ! you should . 

find 
Such store of vanished pleasures brought to 

mind: 
Such feasts ! the laughs of many a jocund 

hour 
That shook the mortar from King George's 

tower ; 
Such guests ! What famous names its rec- 
ord boasts, 



270 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts ! 
Such stories ! Every beam and plank is 

filled 
With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, 
Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine 
The floors are laid with oozed its turpen- 
tine ! 

A month had flitted since The Club had 

met; 
The day came round ; I found the table set, 
The waiters lounging round the marble 

stairs, 
Empty as yet the double row of chairs. 
I was a full half hour before the rest, 
Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. 
So from the table's side a chair I took, 
And having neither company nor book 
To keep me waking, by degrees there crept 
A torpor over me, — in short, I slept. 
Loosed from its chain, along the wreck- 

strown track 
Of the dead years my soul goes travelling 

back; 
My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it 

seems 
Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than 

dreams, 
So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. 
They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, 
No hint of other than an earth-born source ; 
All seems plain daylight, everything of 

course. 
How dim the colors are, how poor and 

faint 
This palette of weak words with which I 

paint ! 
Here sit my friends ; if I could fix them so 
As to my eyes they seem, my page would 

glow 
Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush 
Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush 
Of life into their features. Ay de mi! 
If syllables were pigments, you should see 
Such breathing portraitures as never man 
Found in the Pitti or the Vatican. 

Here sits our Poet, Laureate, if you will. 
Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it 

still. 
Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his 

bust 
Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, 
Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's 

grace ; 



Dead ! No ! Alive ! I see him in his 

place, 
Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven 

denies 
Her children, pinched by cold New Eng- 
land skies, 
Too often, while the nursery's happier few 
Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. 
Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there 

shines 
The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. 
Modest he seems, not shy; content to 

wait 
Amid the noisy clamor of debate 
The looked-for moment when a peaceful 

word 
Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues 

have stirred. 
In every tone I mark his tender grace 
And all his poems hinted in his face; 
What tranquil joy his friendly presence 

gives ! 
How could I think him dead ? He lives ! 

He lives ! 

There, at the table's farther end I see 
In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, 
The great Professor, strong, broad-shoul- 
dered, square, 
In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. 
His social hour no leaden care alloys, 
His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a 

boy's, — 
That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot, — 
What ear has heard it and remembers not ? 
How often, halting at some wide crevasse 
Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, 
High up the cliffs, the climbing moun- 
taineer, 
Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, 
Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, 
Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing 

laugh, 
From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls 
Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls ! 
How does vast Nature lead her living 
train 
In ordered sequence through that spacious 

brain, 
As in the primal hour when Adam named 
The new-born tribes that young creation 

claimed ! — 
How will her realm be darkened, losing 

thee, 
Her darling, whom we call our Agassiz ! 



OUR DEAD SINGER 



271 



But who is he whose massive frame be- 
lies 

The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes ? 
Who broods in silence till, by questions 

pressed, 
Some answer struggles from his laboring 

breast ? 

An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, 
Locked in his studio with a human heart, 
Tracking its caverned passions to their lair, 
And all its throbbiug mysteries laying bare. 
Count it no marvel that he broods alone 
Over the heart he studies, — 't is his own; 
So in his page, whatever shape it wear, 
The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there, — 
The great Romancer, hid beneath his veil 
Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; 
Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, 
Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. 

From his mild throng of worshippers 

released, 
Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, 
Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, 
By every title always welcome here. 
Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe ? 
You know the race-marks of the Brahmin 

tribe, — 
The spare, slight form, the sloping shoul- 
der's droop, 
The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly 

stoop, 
The lines of thought the sharpened features 

wear, 
Carved by the edge of keen New England 

air. 
List ! for he speaks ! As when a king 

would choose 
The jewels for his bride, he might refuse 
This diamond for its flaw, — find that less 

bright 
Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less 

white 
Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, 
The fairest gems are chosen, and made 

fast 
In golden fetters ; so, with light delays 
He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; 
Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, 
His chosen word is sure to prove the best. 
AVhere in the realm of thought, whose 

air is song, 
Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong ? 
He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, 
Born to unlock the secrets of the skies: 



And which the nobler calling, — if 't is fair 
Terrestrial with celestial to compare, — 
To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, 
Or walk the chambers whence the light- 
ning came, 
Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, 
And steal their effluence for his lips and 
lyre? 
If lost at times in vague aerial flights, 
None treads with firmer footstep when he 

lights ; 
A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, 
Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, 
In every Bible he has faith to read, 
And every altar helps to shape his creed. 
Ask you what name this prisoned spirit 

bears 
While with ourselves this fleeting breath it 

shares ? 
Till angels greet him with a sweeter one 
In heaven, on earth we call him Emerson. 

I start ; I wake ; the vision is withdrawn ; 

Its figures fading like the stars at dawn ; 

Crossed from the roll of life their cher- 
ished names, 

And memory's pictures fading in their 
frames ; 

Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams 

Of buried friendships; blest is he who 
dreams ! 



OUR DEAD SINGER 

H. W. L. 

Pride of the sister realm so long our own, 
We claim with her that spotless fame of 

thine, 
White as her snow and fragrant as her 
pine ! 
Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone 
Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has 
thrown 
Breathes perfume from its blossoms, 

that entwine 
Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sun- 
beams shine, 
On life's long path with tangled cares o'er- 

grown. 
Can Art thy truthful counterfeit com- 
mand, — 
The silver-haloed features, tranquil, 
mild, — 



272 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



Soften the lips of bronze as when they 
smiled, 
Give warmth and pressure to the marble 

hand ? 
Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned ! 
Farewell, sweet Singer ! Heaven re- 
claims its child. 

Carved from the block or cast in clinging 
mould, 
Will grateful Memory fondly try her 

best 
The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; 
His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how 

cold ! 
No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, 
No throb can heave the statue's stony 

breast; 
" He is not here, but risen," will stand 
confest 
In all we miss, in all our eyes behold. 
How Nature loved him ! On his placid 
brow, 
Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred 

sign 
That marks the priesthood of her holiest 
shrine, 
Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough 
That envious Time might clutch or disallow, 
To prove her chosen minstrel's song 
divine. 

On many a saddened hearth the evening 
fire 
Burns paler as the children's hour draws 

near, — 
That joyous hour his song made doubly 
dear, — 
And tender memories touch the faltering 

choir. 
He sings no more on earth; our vain desire 
Aches for the voice we loved so long to 

hear 
In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and 
clear, — 
The sweet contralto that could never tire. 
Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, 
The Maenad's scream, the stark barba- 
rian's cry, 
Still for those soothing, loviug tones we 
sigh; 
Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again ! 
The shadowy silence hears us call in vain ! 
His lips are hushed ; his song shall never 
die. 



TWO POEMS TO HARRIET 
BEECHER STOWE 

ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, 
JUNE 14, 1882 

I. AT THE SUMMIT 

Sister, we bid you welcome, — we who 
stand 

On the high table-land; 
We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine 

slope, 
And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, 
Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, 
Leading our footsteps where the dark cre- 
vasse 
Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass, — 
Sister, we clasp your hand ! 

Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has 
lent 

Before the swift descent. 

Look ! the warm sunbeams kiss the glitter- 
ing ice; 

See ! next the snow-drift blooms the edel- 
weiss ; 

The mated eagles fan the frosty air; 

Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, 

And, in their time, the darkening hours 
that bear 

Sweet memories, peace, content. 

Thrice welcome ! shining names our missals 

show 

Amid their rubrics' glow, 
But search the blazoned record's starry line, 
What halo's radiance fills the page like 

thine ? 
Thou who by some celestial clue couldst 

find 
The way to all the hearts of all mankind, 
On thee, already canonized, enshrined, 

What more can Heaven bestow ! 

II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE 

If every tongue that speaks her praise 
For whom I shape my tinkling phrase 

Were summoned to the table, 
The vocal chorus that would meet 
Of mingling accents harsh or sweet, 
From every land and tribe, would beat 

The polyglots at Babel. 



A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD 273 



Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, 
Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine, 

Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi, 
High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too, 
The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, 
Arab, Armenian, and Mantehoo, 

Would shout, " We know the lady ! " 

Know her ! Who knows not Uncle Tom 
And her he learned his gospel from 

Has never heard of Moses ; 
Full well the brave black hand we know 
That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe 
That killed the weed that used to grow 

Among the Southern roses. 

When Archimedes, long a^o, 

Spoke out so grandly, " dos pou sto — 

Give me a place to stand on, 
I '11 move your planet for you, now," — 
He little dreamed or fancied how 
The sto at last should find its pou 

For woman's faith to land on. 

Her lever was the wand of art, 
Her fulcrum was the human heart, 

Whence all unfailing aid is; 
She moved the earth ! Its thunders pealed, 
Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, 
The blood-red fountains were unsealed, 

And Moloch sunk to Hades. 

All through the conflict, up and down 
Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, 

One ghost, one form ideal; 
And which was false and which was true, 
And which was mightier of the two, 
The wisest sibyl never knew, 

For both alike were real. 

Sister, the holy maid does well 

Who counts her beads in convent cell, 

Where pale devotion lingers; 
But she who serves the sufferer's needs, 
Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, 
May trust the Lord will count her beads 

As well as human fingers. 

When Truth herself was Slavery's slave, 
Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave 

The rainbow wings of fiction. 
And Truth who soared descends to-day 
Bearing an angel's wreath away, 
Its lilies at thy feet to lay 

With Heaven's own benediction. 



A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN 
APTHORP GOULD 

ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA 

AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATA- 
LOGUING THE STARS OF THE SOUTHERN 
HEMISPHERE 

Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Ven- 
dome, May 6, 1885. 

Once more Orion and the sister Seven 
Look on thee from the skies that hailed 
thy birth, — 
How shall we welcome thee, whose home 
was heaven, 
From thy celestial wanderings back to 
earth ? 

Science has kept her midnight taper burn- 
ing 
To greet thy coming with its vestal 
flame; 
Friendship has murmured, " When art thou 
returning ? " 
" Not yet ! Not yet ! " the answering 
message came. 

Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devo- 
tion, 
While the blue realm had kingdoms to 
explore, — 
Patience, like his who ploughed the unfur- 
rowed ocean, 
Till o'er its margin loomed San Salva- 
dor. 

Through the long nights I see thee ever 
waking, 
Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemi- 
sphere, 
While with thy griefs our weaker hearts 
are aching, 
Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based 
pier. 

The souls that voyaged the azure depths 
before thee 
Watch with thy tireless vigils, all un- 
seen, — 
Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er 
thee, 
And with his toy-like tube the Floren- 
tine, — 



274 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



He at whose word the orb that bore him 
shivered 
To find her central sovereignty disowned, 
While the wan lips of priest and pontiff 
quivered, 
Their jargon stilled, their Baal disen- 
thraled. 

Flamsteed and Newton look with brows 
unclouded, 
Their strife forgotten with its faded 
scars, — 
(Titans, who found the world of space too 
crowded 
To walk in peace among its myriad 
stars). 

All cluster round thee, — seers of earliest 
ages, 
Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned 
kings, 
From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages 
To his who weighed the planet's fluid 
rings. 

And we, for whom the northern heavens 
are lighted, 
For whom the storm has passed, the sun 
has smiled, 
Our clouds all scattered, all our stars 
united, 
We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long- 
lost child. 

Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arch- 
ing splendor, 
Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, 
In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, ten- 
der, 
We bid thee welcome to thine earthly 
home ! 



TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE 

AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS 
EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, DECEMBER 12, 
1885 

With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's 
Mercury, presented by a few friends. 

Fit emblem for the altar's side, 
And him who serves its daily need, 

The stay, the solace, and the guide 
Of mortal men, whate'er his creed ! 



Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, 
He feeds the upward-climbing fire, 

Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, 
Man's noblest lesson, — to aspire. 

Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, 

Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, 

And o'er Dodona's silent grove 

Streams the white ray from Bethlehem's 
star. 

Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, 
A godlike shape, that human hands 

Have fired with Art's electric touch, 
The herald of Olympus stands. 

Ask not what ore the furnace knew; 

Love mingled with the flowing mass, 
And lends its own unchanging hue, 

Like gold in Corinth's molten brass. 

Take then our gift; this airy form 
Whose bronze our benedictions gild, 

The hearts of all its givers warm 

With love by freezing years unchilled. 

With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, 
Still toiling in your Master's field, 

Before you wave the growths unshorn, 
Their ripened harvest yet to yield. 

True servant of the Heavenly Sire, 
To you our tried affection clings, 

Bids you still labor, still aspire, 

But clasps your feet and steals their 
wings. 



TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

This is your month, the month of " perfect 

days," 
Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. 
Nature herself your earliest welcome 

breathes, 
Spreads every leaflet, every bower in- 

wreathes ; 
Carpets her paths for your returning feet, 
Puts forth her best your coming steps to 

greet; 
And Heaven must surely find the earth in 

tune 
When Home, sweet Home, exhales the 

breath of June. 



TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



2 75 



These blessed days are waning all too 

fast, 
And June's bright visions mingling with 

the past; 

Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose 
Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, 
And fills its slender tubes with honeyed 

sweets; 
The fields are pearled with milk-white 

margarites ; 
The dandelion, Vhich you sang of old, 
Has lost its pride of place, its crown of 

gold, 
But still displays its feathery-mantled 

globe, 
"Which children's breath or wandering 

winds unrobe. 
These were your humble friends; your 

opened eyes 
Nature had trained her common gifts to 

prize ; 
Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise 
Charles, with his muddy margin and the 

harsh, 
Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. 
New England's home-bred scholar, well 

you knew 
Her soil, her speech, her people, through 

and through, 
And loved then* ever with the love that 

holds 
All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant 

folds. 
Though far and wide your winged words 

have flown, 
Your daily presence kept you all our own, 
Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of 

pride, 
We heard your summons, and you left our 

side 
For larger duties and for tasks untried. 

How pleased the Spaniards for a while to 

claim 
This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, 
Who stored their classics on his crowded 

shelves 
And loved their Calderon as they did 

themselves ! 
Before his eyes what changing pageants 

pass ! 
The bridal feast how near the funeral 

mass ! 
The death-stroke falls, — the Misereres 

wail ; 



The joy - bells ring, — the tear - stained 

cheeks unveil, 
While, as the playwright shifts his pictured 

scene, 
The royal mourner crowns his second 

queen. 

From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride, — 
Madrid and London long-stretched leagues 

divide. 
What if I send him, " Uncle S., says he," 
To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B." ? 
A nation's servants go where they are 

sent, — 
He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. 
By what enchantments, what alluring 

arts, 
Our truthful James led captive British 

hearts, — 
Whether his shrewdness made their states- 
men halt, 
Or if his learning found their Dons at 

fault, 
Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, 
Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes, — 
Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; 
But that he did it all must needs confess. 
England herself without a blush may claim 
Her only conqueror since the Norman came. 
Eight years an exile ! What a weary 

while 
Since first our herald sought the mother 

isle ! 
His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has 

soiled, — 
He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled. 

Here let us keep him, here he saw the 

light, — 
His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; 
And if we lose him our lament will be 
We have " five hundred " — not " as good 

as he." 



TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY 
1887 

Friend, whom thy fourscore winters leave 

more dear 
Than when life's roseate summer on thy 

cheek 



276 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest 
year, 

Lonely, how lonely ! is the snowy peak 

Thy feet have reached, and mine have 
climbed so near ! 

Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape 
drear 

I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to 
seek, 

Warm with the love no rippling rhymes 
can speak ! 

Look backward ! From thy lofty height 
survey 

Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories 
won, 

Of dreams made real, largest hopes out- 
run ! 

Look forward ! Brighter than earth's 
morning ray 

Streams the pure light of Heaven's unset- 
ting sun, 

The unclouded dawn of life's immortal 
day! 



PRELUDE TO A VOLUME 
PRINTED IN RAISED LET- 
TERS FOR THE BLIND 

Dear friends, left darkling in the long 

eclipse 
That veils the noonday, — you whose 

finger-tips 
A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find 
Where ours go stumbling, senseless, help- 
less, blind, 
This wreath of verse how dare I offer you 
To whom the garden's choicest gifts are 

due? 
The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, 
Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling 
flowers ? 

Nay, those I have I bring you, — at their 
birth 

Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grate- 
ful earth; 

If my rash boyhood dropped some idle 
seeds, 

And here and there you light on saucy 
weeds 

Among the fairer growths, remember still 

Song comes of grace, and not of human 
will: 



We get a jarring note when most we try, 
Then strike the chord we know not how or 

why; 
Our stately verse with too aspiring art 
Oft overshoots and fails to reach the 

heart, 
While the rude rhyme one human throb 

endears 
Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to 

tears. 
Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, 
From Nature's lesson learn the poet's 

creed; 
The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, 
The wayside seedling scarce a tint may 

claim, 
Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold 
A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice 

hold. 



BOSTON TO FLORENCE 

Sent to " The Philological Circle " of Flor- 
ence for its meeting in commemoration of 
Dante, January 27, 1881, the anniversary of 
his first condemnation. 

Proud of her clustering spires, her new- 
built towers, 
Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering 

sea, 
A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to 
thee, 
Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its 

flowers ! 
Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love em- 
bowers, 
Yet none with truer homage bends the 

knee, 
Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than 
we, 
Whose poets make thy dead Immortal 

ours. 
Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how 
near ! 
Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse 

of thine 
Like the stern river from its Apennine 
Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled 

with fear: 
Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is 
dear, 
And every language knows the Song 
Divine ! 



HARVARD COLLEGE ANNIVERSARY 



277 



AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL 

MARCH 8, 1882 

The waves unbuild the wasting shore; 

Where mountains towered the billows 
sweep, 
Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, 

And build new empires from the deep. 
So while the floods of thought lay waste 

The proud domain of priestly creeds, 
Its heaven-appointed tides will haste 

To plant new homes for human needs. 
Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled 

The change an outworn church deplores; 
The legend sinks, but Faith shall build 

A fairer throne on new-found shores. 



POEM 

FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH 
ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF 
HARVARD COLLEGE 

Twice had the mellowing sun of autumn 

crowned 
The hundredth circle of his yearly round, 
When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: 
That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, 
When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far 

and wide, 
Through mart and village, lake's and 

ocean's side, 
Came, with one impulse, one fraternal 

throng, 
And crowned the hours with banquet, 

speech, and song ? 

Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, 
I see in state the long procession pass: 
Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, 
Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the mar- 
shalled line, 
Still seen in front, as on that far-off day 
His ribboned baton showed the column's 

way. 
Not all are gone who marched in manly 

pride 
And waved their truncheons at their lead- 
er's side; 
Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire 

shared, 
These to be with us envious Time has 
spared. 



Few are the faces, so familiar then, 

Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of 

men; 
Scarce one of all the living gathered there, 
Whose unthiuned locks betrayed a silver 

hair, 
Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the 

same 
As our own sires and grandsires, save in 

name. 
There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely 

round 
For classmates' faces, hardly known if 

found ; 
See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; 
Close at its side the pallid son of art, 
Whose purchased skill with borrowed 

meaning clothes, 
And stolen hues, the smirking face he 

loathes. 
Here is the patient scholar ;- in his looks 
You read the titles of his learned books ; 
What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet 

speak ! 
What problems figure on that wrinkled 

cheek ! 
For never thought but left its stiffened 

trace, 
Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, 
As the swift record of a raindrop stands, 
Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. 
On every face as on the written page 
Each year renews the autograph of age; 
One trait alone may wasting years defy, — 
The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, 
While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest 

strain, — 
Non omnis moriar is its proud refrain. 

Sadly w r e gaze upon the vacant chair; 

He who should claim its honors is not 
there, — 

Otis, whose lips the listening crowd en- 
thrall 

That press and pack the floor of Boston's 
hall. 

But Kirkland smiles, released from toil 
and care 

Since the silk mantle younger shoulders 
wear, — 

Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the self- 
same fire 

That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, 

Who for the altar bore the kindled torch 

To freedom's temple, dying in its porch. 



278 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



Three grave professions in their sons appear, 
Whose words well studied all well pleased 

will hear: 
Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine, 
Statesman, historian, critic, and divine; 
Solid and square behold majestic Shaw, 
A mass of wisdom and a mine of law ; 
Warren, whose arm the doughtiest war- 
riors fear, 
Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear, — 
Proud of his calling, him the world loves 

best, 
Not as the coming, but the parting guest. 

Look on that form, — with eye dilating scan 
The stately mould of nature's kingliest man ! 
Tower-like he stands in life's unf aded prime ; 
Ask you his name ? None asks a second 

time ! 
He from the land his outward semblance 

takes, 
Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er 

slumbering lakes. 
See in the impress which the body wears 
How its imperial might the soul declares: 
The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide, 
That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide ; 
The lines of thought that plough the sober 

cheek; 
Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak 
In tones like answers from Dodona's grove ; 
An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove. 
I look and wonder ; will he be content — 
This man, this monarch, for the purple 

meant — 
The meaner duties of his tribe to share, 
Clad in the garb that common mortals 

wear ? 
Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless 

wings, 
Beneath whose plumes the hidden oestrum 

stings ; 
Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's 

vulgar crowds, 
And like the eagle soar above the clouds, 
Must feel the pang that fallen angels know 
When the red lightning strikes thee from 

below ! 

Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the 

mould 
Of him whom next my roving eyes behold; 
His, more the scholar's than the statesman's 

face, 
Proclaims him born of academic race. 



Weary his look, as if an aching brain 
Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain; 
His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, 

owns 
A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones, 
Yet when its breath some loftier thought 

inspires 
Glows with a heat that every bosom fires. 
Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild 

flower knows 
The full-blown charms of culture's double 

rose, — 
Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost, 
Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost ! 

Two voices, only two, to earth belong, 

Of all whose accents met the listening 

throng: 
Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance 

framed, 
On that proud day a twofold duty claimed; 
One other yet, — remembered or forgot, — 
Forgive my silence if I name him not. 
Can I believe it ? I, whose youthful voice 
Claimed a brief gamut, — notes not over 

choice, — 
Stood undismayed before the solemn throng, 
And propria voce sung that saucy song 
Which even in memory turns my soul 

aghast, — 
Felix audacia was the verdict cast. 

What were the glory of these festal days 
Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze ? 
Night comes at last with all her starry train 
To find a light in every glittering pane. 
From " Harvard's " windows see the sudden 

flash, — 
Old " Massachusetts " glares through every 

sash; 
From wall to wall the kindling splendors 

run 
Till all is glorious as the noonday sun. 

How to the scholar's mind each object 
brings 

What some historian tells, some poet sings ! 

The good gray teacher whom we all re- 
vered — 

Loved, honored, laughed at, and by fresh- 
men feared, 

As from old " Harvard," where its light 
began, 

From hall to hall the clustering splendors 



HARVARD COLLEGE ANNIVERSARY 



279 



Took down his well-worn JEschylus aud 
read, 

Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed, 

How the swift herald crossed the leagues 
between 

Itycense's monarch and his faithless queen; 

And thus he read, — my verse but ill dis- 
plays 

The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase: 

On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile, 
And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle: 
From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies, 
Thence where the watch-towers of JIacistus 

rise. 
The sentries of Mesapius in their turn 
Bid the dry heath in high-piled masses burn, 
Cithozron's crag the crimson billows stain, 
Far jEgiplanctus joins the fiery train. 
Thus the swift courier through the pathless 

night 
Has gained at length the Arachncean height, 
Whence the glad tidings, borne on icings of 

flame, 
" Ilium has fallen ! " reach the royal dame. 

So ends the day; before the midnight stroke 

The lights expiring cloud the air with 
smoke ; 

"While these the toil of younger hands em- 
ploy, _ 

The slumbering Grecian dreams of smoul- 
dering Troy. 

As to that hour with backward steps I turn, 
Midway I pause : behold a funeral urn ! 
Ah, sad memorial ! kuown but all too well 
The tale which thus its golden letters tell: 

This dust, once breathing, changed its joyous 

life 
For toil and hunger, wounds and mortal 

strife ; 
Love, friendship, learning's all-prevailing 

charms, 
For the cold bivouac and the clash of arms. 
The cause of freedom won, a race enslaved 
Called back to manhood, and a nation saved, 
These sons of Harvard, falling ere their 

prime, 
Leave their proud memory to the coming time. 

While in their still retreats our scholars 

turn 
The mildewed pages of the past, to learn 



With endless labor of the sleepless brain 
What once has been and ne'er shall be 



again, 
We reap the harvest of their ceaseless toil 
And find a fragrance in their midnight oil. 
But let a purblind mortal dare the task 
The embryo future of itself to ask, 
The world reminds him, with a scornful 

laugh, 
That times have changed since Prospero 

broke his staff. 
I Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell 
The dismal hour when Lisbon shook aud 

fell, 
Or name the shuddering night that toppled 

down 
Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural 

crown 
Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, 
When earth's blind prisoners fired their 

fatal mines ? 
New realms, new worlds, exulting Science 

claims, 
Still the dim future unexplored remains; 
Her trembling scales the far-off planet 

weigh, 
Her torturing prisms its elements betray, — 
We know what ores the fires of Sirius 

melt, 
What vaporous metals gild Orion's belt; 
Angels, archangels, may have yet to learn 
Those hidden truths our heaven-taught 

eyes discern; 
Yet vain is Knowledge, with her mystic 

wand, 
To pierce the cloudy screen and read be- 
yond; 
Once to the silent stars the fates were 

known, 
To us they tell no secrets but their own. 

At Israel's altar still we humbly bow, 
But where, oh where, are Israel's prophets 

now ? 
Where is the sibyl with her hoarded leaves ? 
Where is the charm the weird enchantress 

weaves ? 
No croaking raven turns the auspex pale, 
No reeking altars tell the morrow's tale; 
The measured footsteps of the Fates are 

dumb, 
Unseen, unheard, unheralded, they come, 
Prophet and priest and all their following 

fail. 
Who then is left to rend the future's veil ? 



28o 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



Who but the poet, he whose nicer sense 
No film can baffle with its slight defence, 
Whose finer vision marks the waves that 

stray, 
Felt, but unseen, beyond the violet ray ? — 
Who, while the storm-wind waits its dark- 
ening shroud, 
Foretells the tempest ere he sees the 

cloud, — 
Stays not for time his secrets to reveal, 
But reads his message ere he breaks the 

seal. 
So Mantua's bard foretold the coming day 
Ere Bethlehem's infant in the manger lay; 
The promise trusted to a mortal tougue 
Found listening ears before the angels 

sung. 
So while his load the creeping pack-horse 

galled, 
While inch by inch the dull canal-boat 

crawled, 
Darwin beheld a Titan from " afar 
Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car," 
That panting giant fed by air and flame, 
The mightiest forges task their strength to 

tame. 

Happy the poet ! him no tyrant fact 
Holds in its clutches to be chained and 

racked; 
Him shall no mouldy document convict, 
No stern statistics gravely contradict; 
No rival sceptre threats his airy throne; 
He rules o'er shadows, but he reigns alone. 
Shall I the poet's broad dominion claim 
Because you bid me wear his sacred name 
For these few moments ? Shall I boldly 

clash 
My flint and steel, and by the sudden flash 
Read the fair vision which my soul descries 
Through the wide pupils of its wondering 

eyes ? 
List then awhile; the fifty years have sped; 
The third full century's opened scroll is 

spread, 
Blank to all eyes save his who dimly sees 
The shadowy future told in words like 

these : 

How strange the prospect to my sight ap- 
pears, 

Changed by the busy hands of fifty years ! 

Full well I know our ocean-salted Charles, 

Filling and emptying through the sands 
and marls 



That wall his restless stream on either bank, 
Not all unlovely when the sedges rank 
Lend their coarse veil the sable ooze to 

hide 
That bares its blackness with the ebbing 

tide. 
In other shapes to my illumined eyes 
Those ragged margins of our stream arise : 
Through walls of stone the sparkling wa- 
ters flow, 
In clearer depths the golden sunsets glow, 
On purer waves the lamps of midnight 

gleam, 
That silver o'er the unpolluted stream. 
Along his shores what stately temples rise, 
What spires, what turrets, print the shad- 
owed skies ! 
Our smiling Mother sees her broad domain 
Spread its tall roofs along the western 

plain ; 
Those blazoned windows' blushing glories 

tell 
Of grateful hearts that loved her long and 

well; 
Yon gilded dome that glitters in the sun 
Was Dives' gift, — alas, his only one ! 
These buttressed walls enshrine a banker's 

name, 
That hallowed chapel hides a miser's 

shame ; 
Their wealth they left, — their memory 

cannot fade 
Though age shall crumble every stone they 

laid. 
Great lord of millions, — let me call thee 

great, 
Since countless servants at thy bidding 

wait, — 
Ricliesse oblige : no mortal must be blind 
To all but self, or look at human kind 
Laboring and suffering, — all its want and 

woe, — 
Through sheets of crystal, as a pleasing 

show 
That makes life happier for the chosen 

few 
Duty for whom is something not to do. 
When thy last page of life at length is 

filled, 
What shall thine heirs to keep thy memory 

build ? 
Will piles of stone in Auburn's mournful 

shade 
Save from neglect the spot where thou art 

laid ? 



HARVARD COLLEGE ANNIVERSARY 



281 



Nay, deem not thus; the sauntering stran- 
ger's eye 
Will pass unmoved thy columned tombstone 

by, 

No memory wakened, not a teardrop shed, 

Thy name uncared for and thy date unread. 
But if thy record thou indeed dost prize, 

Bid from the soil some stately temple 
rise, — 

Some hall of learning, some memorial 
shrine, 

With names long honored to associate 
thine : 

So shall thy fame outlive thy shattered 
bust 

When all around thee slumber in the dust. 

Thus England's Henry lives in Eton's 
towers, 

Saved from the spoil oblivion's gulf de- 
vours ; 

Our later records with as fair a fame 

Have wreathed each uncrowned benefac- 
tor's name; 

The walls they reared the memories still 
retain 

That churchyard marbles try to keep in 
vain. 

In vain the delving antiquary tries 

To find the tomb where generous Harvard 
lies: 

Here, here, his lasting monument is found, 

Where every spot is consecrated ground ! 

O'er Stoughton's dust the crumbling stone 
decays, 

Fast fade its lines of lapidary praise; 

There the wild bramble weaves its ragged 
nets, 

There the dry lichen spreads its gray ro- 
settes; 

Still in yon walls his memory lives un- 
spent, 

Nor asks a braver, nobler monument. 

Thus Hollis lives, and Holden, honored, 
praised, 

And good Sir Matthew, in the halls they 
raised ; 

Thus live the worthies of these later times, 

Who shine in deeds, less brilliant, grouped 
in rhymes. 

Say, shall the Muse with faltering steps 
retreat, 

Or dare these names in rhvthmic form re- 
peat ? 

Why not as boldly as from Homer's lips 

The long array of Argive battle-ships ? 



When o'er our graves a thousand years 

have past 
(If to such date our threatened globe shall 

last) 
These classic precincts, myriad feet have 

pressed, 
Will show on high, in beauteous garlands 

dressed, 
Those honored names that grace our later 

day, — 
Weld, Matthews, Sever, Thayer, Austin, 

Gray, 
Sears, Phillips, Lawrence, Hemenway, — 

to the list 
Add Sanders, Sibley, — all the Muse has 

missed. 

Once more I turn to read the pictured page 
Bright with the promise of the coming age. 
Ye unborn sons of children yet unborn, 
Whose youthful eyes shall greet that far-off 

morn, 
Blest are those eyes that all undimmed be- 
hold 
The sights so longed for by the wise of old. 
From high-arched alcoves, through re- 
sounding halls, 
Clad in full robes majestic Science calls, 
Tireless, unsleeping, still at Nature's feet, 
Whate'er she utters fearless to repeat, 
Her lips at last from every cramp released 
That Israel's prophet caught from Egypt's 
priest. 
I see the statesman, firm, sagacious, bold, 
For life's long conflict cast in amplest 

mould ; 
Not his to clamor with the senseless throng 
That shouts unshamed, " Our party, right 

or wrong," 
But in the patriot's never-ending fight 
To side with Truth, who changes wrong to 
right. 
I see the scholar; in that wondrous time 
Men, women, children, all can write in 

rhyme. 
These four brief lines addressed to youth 

inclined 
To idle rhyming in his notes I find: 

Who writes in verse that should have writ in 

prose 
Is like a traveller walking on his toes- 
Happy the rhymester who in time has found 
The heels he lifts were made to touch the 

ground. 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



I see gray teachers, — ou their work intent, 
Their lavished lives, in endless labor spent, 
Had closed at last in age and penury 

wrecked, 
Martyrs, not burned, but frozen in neglect, 
Save for the generous hands that stretched 

in aid 
Of worn-out servants left to die half paid. 
Ah, many a year will pass, I thought, ere 

we 
Such kindly forethought shall rejoice to 

see, — 
Monarchs are mindful of the sacred debt 
That cold republics hasten to forget. 

I see the priest, — if such a name he 

bears 
Who without pride his sacred vestment 

wears ; 
And while the symbols of his tribe I seek 
Thus my first impulse bids me think and 

speak: 

Let not the mitre England's prelate wears 
Next to the crown whose regal pomp it 

shares, 
Though low before it courtly Christians 

bow, 
Leave its red mark on Younger England's 

brow. 
We love, we honor, the maternal dame, 
But let her priesthood wear a modest name, 
While through the waters of the Pilgrim's 

bay 
A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the 

way. 
Too old grew Britain for her mother's 

beads, — 
Must we be necklaced with her children's 

creeds ? 
Welcome alike in surplice or in gown 
The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown ! 
We greet with cheerful, not submissive, 

mien 
A sister church, but not a mitred Queen ! 

A few brief flutters, and the unwilling 
Muse, 

Who feared the flight she hated to refuse, 

Shall fold the wings whose gayer plumes 
are shed, 

Here where at first her half-fledged pin- 
ions spread. 
Well I remember in the long ago 

How in the forest shades of Fontainebleau, 



Strained through a fissure in a rocky cell, 
One crystal drop with measured cadence 

fell. 
Still, as of old, forever bright and clear, 
The fissured cavern drops its wonted tear, 
And wondrous virtue, simple folk aver, 
Lies in that teardrop of la rocJie qui pleure. 

Of old I wandered by the river's side 
Between whose banks the mighty waters 

glide, 
Where vast Niagara, hurrying to its fall, 
Builds and unbuilds its ever-tumbling wall; 
Oft in my dreams I hear the rush and roar 
Of battling floods, and feel the trembling 

shore, 
As the huge torrent, girded for its leap, 
With bellowing thunders plunges down the 

steep. 
Not less distinct, from memory's pic- 
tured urn, 
The gray old rock, the leafy woods, return; 
Robed in their pride the lofty oaks appear, 
And once again with quickened sense I 

hear, 
Through the low murmur of the leaves 

that stir, 
The tinkling teardrop of la roche qui pleure. 

So when the third ripe century stands com- 
plete, 

As once again the sons of Harvard meet, 

Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands, 

Drawn from all quarters, — farthest dis- 
tant lands, 

Where through the reeds the scaly saurian 
steals, 

Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering 
seals, 

Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron 
crown, 

Where Sacramento sees the suns go down; 

Nay, from the cloisters vrhence the refluent 
tide 

Wafts their pale students to our Mother's 
side, — 

Mid all the tumult that the day shall 
bring, 

While all the echoes shout, and roar, and 

r . in £'. 
These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey, 

Once more emerging to the light of day, 

Not all unpleasing to the listening ear 

Shall wake the memories of this bygone 

year, 



HARVARD COLLEGE ANNIVERSARY 



283 



Heard as I bear the measured drops that 

flow 
From the gray rock of wooded Fontaine- 

bleau. 

Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all 
Those fresh young lives that wait our 

Mother's call: 
One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest 

dower, — 
Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening 

flower, 
Full of high hopes no coward doubts en- 
chain, 
With all the future throbbing in its brain, 
And mightiest instincts which the beating 

heart 
Fills with the fire its burning waves impart. 
O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare, — 
Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair, 
Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height 
Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy 

light, 
Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond 

deceits, 
Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats ! 
Nature's rash promise every day is broke, — 
A thousand acorns breed a single oak, 
The myriad blooms that make the orchard 

gay 
In barren beauty throw their lives away; 
Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that 

yields 
The painted blossoms which adorn the fields, 
When the fair orchard wears its May-day 

suit 
Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit ? 
Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion 

dressed, 
In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed, 
Though rich the spoils that ripening years 

may bring, 
To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling, — ■ 
Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth 
Can match the rainbow on the robes of 

youth ! 

Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust 
We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust: 
While o'er these walls the Christian banner 

waves 
From hallowed lips shall flow the truth 

that saves; 
While o'er those portals Veritas you read 



No church shall bind you with its human 

creed. 
Take from the past the best its toil has 

won, 
But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun. 
Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are 

shed, 
Quit the old paths that error loved to tread, 
And a new wreath of living blossoms seek, 
A narrower pathway up a loftier peak; 
Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear 
Leave far behind you, all who enter here ! 

As once of old from Ida's lofty height 
The flaming signal flashed across the night, 
So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays 
Till every watch-tower shows its kindling 

blaze. 
Caught from a spark and fanned by every 

gale, 
A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale ; 
Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus 

shine, 
And Bowdoiu answers through her groves 

of pine; 
O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections 

steal, 
Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron 

heel; 
Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were 

bound 
Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times 

round, 
Bursts such a light that trembling souls 

inquire 
If the whole church of Calvin is on fire ! 
Well may they ask, for what so brightly 

burns 
As a dry creed that nothing ever learns ? 
Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain 
Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed 

plain. 

Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine, 
Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine, 
An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost, 
Touched by the finger of November's frost, 
With sweet, sad memories of that earlier 

day, 
And all that listened to my first-born lay, 
With grateful heart this glorious morn I 

see, — 
Would that my tribute worthier were of 

thee ! 



284 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



POST-PRANDIAL 



PHI BETA KAPPA 



WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR ; CHARLES GOD- 
FREY LELAND, POET 



"The Dutch have taken Holland," — so 

the school-boys used to say; 
The Dutch have taken Harvard, — no doubt 

of that to-day ! 
For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and 

all their vrows were Vans; 
Aud the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, 

and here is honest Hans. 

Mynheers, you both are welcome ! Fair 
cousin Wendell P., 

Our ancestors were dwellers beside the 
Zuyder Zee; 

Both Grotius and Erasmus were country- 
men of we, 

And Vondel was our namesake, though he 
spelt it with a V. 

It is well old Evert Jausen sought a dwell- 
ing over sea 

On the margin of the Hudson, where he 
sampled you and me 

Through our grandsires and great-grand- 
sires, for you would n't quite agree 

With the steady-going burghers along the 
Zuyder Zee. 

Like our Motley's Johu of Barnveld, you 

have always been inclined 
To speak, — well, — somewhat frankly, — 

to let us know your mind, 
And the Mynheers would have told you to 

be cautious what you said, 
Or else that silver tongue of yours might 

cost your precious head. 

But we 're very glad you 've kept it; it was 

always Freedom's own, 
And whenever Reason chose it she found 

a royal throne ; 
You have whacked us with your sceptre; 

our backs were little harmed, 
And while we rubbed our bruises we owned 

we had been charmed. 



And you, our quasi Dutchman, what wel- 
come should be yours 

For all the wise prescriptions that work 
your laughter-cures ? 

" Shake before taking " ? — not a bit, — 
the bottle-cure 's a sham ; 

Take before shaking, and you'll find it 
shakes your diaphragm. 

" Hans Breitmann gif a barty, — vhere is 

dot barty now ? " 
On every shelf where wit is stored to 

smooth the careworn brow ! 
A health to stout Hans Breitmann ! How 

long before we see 
Another Hans as handsome, — as bright a 

man as he ! 



THE FLANEUR 

BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1 882 
DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS 

I love all sights of earth and skies, 
From flowers that glow to stars that shine; 
The comet and the penny show, 
All curious things, above, below, 
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: 
I claim the Christian Pagan's line, 
Humani nihil, — even so, — 
And is not human life divine ? 

When soft the western breezes blow, 

And strolling youths meet sauntering maids, 

I love to watch the stirring trades 

Beneath the Vallombrosa shades 

Our much-enduring elms bestow; 

The vender and his rhetoric's flow, 

That lambent stream of liquid lies; 

The bait he dangles from his line, 

The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize. 

I halt before the blazoned sign 

That bids me linger to admire 

The drama time can never tire, 

The little hero of the huuch, 

With iron arm and soul of fire, 

And will that works his fierce desire, — 

Untamed, unscared, unconquered Punch ! 

My ear a pleasing torture finds 

In tones the withered sibyl grinds, — 

The dame sans merci's broken strain, 

Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known, 



THE FLANEUR 



285 



When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne, 
A siren singing by the Seine. 

But most I love the tube that spies 
The orbs celestial in their march; 
That shows the comet as it whisks 
Its tail across the planets' disks, 
As if to blind their blood-shot eyes; 
Or wheels so close against the sun 
We tremble at the thought of risks 
Our little spinning ball may run, 
To pop like corn that children parch, 
From summer something overdone, 
And roll, a cinder, through the skies. 

Grudge not to-day the scanty fee 
To him who farms the firmament, 
To whom the Milky Way is free; 
Who holds the wondrous crystal key, 
The silent Open Sesame 
That Science to her sons has lent; 
Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar 
That shuts the road to sun and star. 
If Venus only comes to time, 
(And prophets say she must and shall,) 
To-day will hear the tinkling chime 
Of many a ringing silver dime, 
For him whose optic glass supplies 
The crowd with astronomic eyes, — 
The Galileo of the Mall. 

Dimly the transit morning broke; 
The sun seemed doubting what to do, 
As one who questions how to dress, 
And takes his doublets from the press, 
And halts between the old and new. 
Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue, 
Or don, at least, his ragged cloak, 
With rents that show the azure through ! 

I go the patient crowd to join 

That round the tube my eyes discern, 

The last new-comer of the file, 

And wait, and wait, a weary while, 

And gape, and stretch, and shrug, and 

smile, 
(For each his place must fairly earn, 
Hindmost and foremost, in his turn,) 
Till hitching onward, pace by pace, 
I gain at last the envied place, 
And pay the white exiguous coin: 
The sun and I are face to face ; 
He glares at me, I stare at him; 
And lo ! my straining eye has found 
A little spot that, black and round, 



Lies near the crimsoned fire-orb's rim. 

blessed, beauteous evening star, 

Well named for her whom earth adores, — 
The Lady of the dove-drawn car, — 

1 know thee in thy white simar; 
But veiled in black, a rayless spot, 
Blank as a careless scribbler's blot, 
Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame, — 
The stolen robe that Night restores 
When Day has shut his golden doors, — 
I see thee, yet I know thee not; 

And canst thou call thyself the same ? 

A black, round spot, — and that is all ; 
And such a speck our earth would be 
If he who looks upon the stars 
Through the red atmosphere of Mars 
Could see our little creeping ball 
Across the disk of crimson crawl 
As I our sister planet see. 

And art thou, then, a world like ours, 
Flung from the orb that whirled our own 
A molten pebble from its zone ? 
How must thy burning sands absorb 
The fire-waves of the blazing orb, 
Thy chain so short, thy path so near, 
Thy flame-defying creatures hear 
The maelstroms of the photosphere ! 
And is thy bosom decked with flowers 
That steal their bloom from scalding show- 
ers ? 
And hast thou cities, domes, and towers, 
And life, and love that makes it dear, 
And death that fills thy tribes with fear ? 

Lost in my dream, my spirit soars 

Through paths the wandering angels know; 

My all-pervading thought explores 

The azure ocean's lucent shores; 

I leave my mortal self below, 

As up the star-lit stairs I climb, 

And still the widening view reveals 

In endless rounds the circling wheels 

That build the horologe of time. 

New spheres, new suns, new systems gleam; 

The voice no earth-born echo hears 

Steals softly on my ravished ears: 

I hear them " singing as they shine " — 

A mortal's voice dissolves my dream: 

My patient neighbor, next in line, 

Hints gently there are those who wait. 

O guardian of the starry gate, 

What coin shall pay this debt of mine ? 

Too slight thy claim, too small the fee 



286 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



That bids thee turn the potent key 
The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine. 
Forgive my own the small affront, 
The insult of the proffered dime; 
Take it, O friend, since this thy wont, 
But still shall faithful memory be 
A bankrupt debtor unto thee, 
And pay thee with a grateful rhyme. 



AVE 

PRELUDE TO "ILLUSTRATED POEMS " 

Full well I know the frozen hand has come 
That smites the songs of grove and garden 

dumb, 
And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthe- 
mum; 

Yet would I find one blossom, if I might, 
Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of 

white 
Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight. 

Sometimes in dim November's narrowing 

day, 
When all the season's pride has passed 

away, 
As mid the blackened stems and leaves we 

stray, 

We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft 
A starry disk the hurrying winds have left, 
Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft: 

Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes — 
Poor wayside nursling ! — fixed in blank 

surprise 
At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies; 

Or golden daisj', — will it dare disclaim 
The lion's tooth, to wear this gentler name ? 
Or blood-red salvia, with its lips aflame : 

The storms have stripped the lily and the 

rose, 
Still on its cheek the flush of summer 

glows, 
And all its heart-leaves kindle as it blows. 

So had I looked some bud of song to find 
The careless winds of autumn left behind, 
With these of earlier seasons' growth to 
bind. 



Ah me ! my skies are dark with sudden 

grief," 7 
A flower lies faded on my garnered sheaf; 
Yet let the sunshine gild this virgin leaf, — 

The joyous, blessed sunshine of the past, 
Still with me, though the heavens are 

overcast, — 
The light that shines while life and memory 

last. 

Go, pictured rhymes, for loving readers 

meant ; 
Bring back the smiles your jocund morning 

lent, 
And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet 

unspent ! 

KING'S CHAPEL 

READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNI- 
VERSARY 

Is it a weanling's weakness for the past 

That in the stormy, rebel-breeding town, 
Swept clean of relics by the levelling blast, 
Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of 

" King's," 
Still to its outworn symbols fondly clings, — 
Its unchurched mitres and its empty 
crown ? 

Poor harmless emblems ! All has shrunk 
away 
That made them gorgons in the patriot's 
eyes; 
The priestly plaything harms us not to-day; 
The gilded crown is but a pleasing show, 
An old-world heirloom, left from long ago, 
Wreck of the past that memory bids us 
prize. 

Lightly we glance the fresh-cut marbles o'er; 
Those two of earlier date our eyes en- 
thrall: 
The proud old Briton's by the western door, 
And hers, the Lady of Colonial days, 
Whose virtues live in long-drawn classic 
phrase, — 
The fair Francesca of the southern wall. 

Ay ! those were goodly men that Reynolds 
drew, 
And stately dames our Copley's canvas 
holds, 



HYMN FOR KING'S CHAPEL ANNIVERSARY 



287 



To their old Church, their Royal Master, 

true, 
Proud of the claim their valiant sires had 

earned, 
That "gentle blood," not lightly to be 

spurned, 
Save by the churl ungenerous Nature 

moulds. 

All vanished ! It were idle to complain 
That ere the fruits shall come the flowers 
must fall; 
Yet somewhat we have lost amidst our 

gain, 
Some rare ideals time may not restore, — 
The charm of courtly breeding, seen no 
more, 
And reverence, dearest ornament of all. 

Thus musing, to the western wall I came, 
Departing: lo ! a tablet fresh and fair, 
Where glistened many a youth's remem- 
bered name 
In golden letters on the snow-white stone, — 
Young lives these aisles and arches once 
have known, 
Their country's bleeding altar might not 
spare. 

These died that we might claim a soil un- 
stained, 
Save by the blood of heroes; their be- 
quests 

A realm unsevered and a race unchained. 

Has purer blood through Norman veins 
come down 

From the rough knights that clutched the 
Saxon's crown 
Than warmed the pulses in these faith- 
ful breasts ? 

These, too, shall live in history's deathless 
page, 
High on the slow-wrought pedestals of 
fame, 
Ranged with the heroes of remoter age; 
They could not die who left their nation free, 
Firm as the rock, unfettered as the sea, 
Its heaven unshadowed by the cloud of 
shame. 

While on the storied past our memory 
dwells, 
Our grateful tribute shall not be de- 
nied, — 



The wreath, the cross of rustling immor- 
telles; 

And willing hands shall clear each darken- 
ing bust, 

As year by year sifts down the clinging 
dust 
On Shirley's beauty and on Vassall's 
pride. 

But for our own, our loved and lost, we bring 
With throbbing hearts and tears that 
still must flow, 

In full-heaped hands, the opening flowers 
of spring, 

Lilies half-blown, and budding roses, red 

As their young cheeks, before the blood 
was shed 
That lent their morning bloom its gener- 
ous glow. 



debt, 

Or sum in words our martyrs' silent 
claims ? 
Who shall our heroes' dread exchange for- 

. get, — 
All life, youth, hope, could promise to 

allure 
For all that soul could brave or flesh en- 
dure ? 
They shaped our future; we but carve 
their names. 



HYMN 

FOR THE SAME OCCASION 

SUNG BY THE CONGREGATION TO THE TUNE 
OF TALLIS'S EVENING HYMN 

O'ershabowed by the walls that climb, 
Piled up in air by living hands, 

A rock amid the waves of time, 

Our gray old house of worship stands. 

High o'er the pillared aisles we love ■ 
The symbols of the past look down; 

Unharmed, unharming, throned above, 
Behold the mitre and the crown ! 

Let not our younger faith forget 

The loyal souls that held them dear; 

The prayers we read their tears have wet, 
The hymns we sing they loved to hear. 



:8S 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



The memory of their earthly throne 
Still to our holy temple clings, 

But here the kneeling suppliants own 
One only Lord, the King of kings. 

Hark ! while our hymn of grateful praise 
The solemn echoing vaults prolong, 

The far-off voice of earlier days 

Blends with our own in hallowed song: 

To Him who ever lives and reigns, 
"Whom all the hosts of heaven adore, 

Who lent the life his breath sustains, 
Be glory now and evermore ! 



HYMN— THE WORD OF PROM- 
ISE 

(by supposition) 

AN HYMN SET FORTH TO BE SUNG BY THE 
GREAT ASSEMBLY AT NEWTOWN, [MASS.] MO. 
12. I. 1636 

Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, eldest son 
of Rev. Abiel Holmes, eighth Pastor of the First 
Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Lord, Thou hast led us as of old 

Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race 

Through Foes that raged, through Floods 
that roll'd, 
To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place. 

Here is Thy bounteous Table spread, 
Thy Manna falls on every Field, 

Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed, 
Thy Might hath been our Spear and 
Shield. 

Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts ! 

Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and 
Sires, 
While on the Godless heathen Coasts 

They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires ! 

The salvage Wilderness remote 

Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders 
sung; 
So from the Rock that Moses smote 

The Fountain of the Desart sprung. 

Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake, 
From wandering Stars of Err our freed, 

When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall 
break 
For Saints that own a common Creed. 



The Walls that fence His Flocks apart 
Shall crack and crumble in Decay, 

And every Tongue and every Heart 
Shall welcome in the new-born Day. 

Then shall His glorious Church rejoice 
His Word of Promise to recall, — 

One sheltering Fold, one Shepherd's 
Voice, 
One God and Father over all ! 



HYMN 

READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL 
AT HUDSON, WISCONSIN 

JUNE 7, 1887 

Angel of love, for every grief 

Its soothing balm thy mercy brings, 

For every pang its healing leaf, 
For homeless want, thine outspread wings. 

Enough for thee the pleading eye, 
The knitted brow of silent pain; 

The portals open to a sigh 

Without the clank of bolt or chain. 

Who is our brother ? He that lies 
Left at the wayside, bruised and sore: 

His need our open hand supplies, 
His welcome waits him at our door. 

Not ours to ask in freezing tones 
His race, his calling, or his creed; 

Each heart the tie of kinship owns, 

When those are human veins that bleed. 

Here stand the champions to defend 
From every wound that flesh can feel; 

Here science, patience, skill, shall blend 
To save, to calm, to help, to heal. 

Father of Mercies ! Weak and frail, 
Thy guiding hand thy children ask; 

Let not the Great Physician fail 
To aid us in our holy task. 

Source of all truth, and love, and light, 
That warm and cheer our earthly days, 

Be ours to serve Thy will aright, 
Be Thine the glory and the praise ! 



ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD 



289 



ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT 
GARFIELD 



Fallen with autumn's falling leaf 
Ere yet his summer's noon was past, 

Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief, — 
What words can match a woe so vast ! 

And whose the chartered claim to speak 
The sacred grief where all have part, 

Where sorrow saddens every cheek 
And broods in every aching heart ? 

Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase 
That thrills the hushed and shrouded 
hall, 

The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, 
The silent tear that love lets fall. 

In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, 

Shall strive unblamed the minstrel 
choir, — 

The singers of the new-born time, 

And trembling age with outworn lyre. 

No room for pride, no place for blame, — 
We fling our blossoms on the grave, 

Pale, — scentless, — faded, — all we claim, 
This only, — what we had we gave. 

Ah, could the grief of all who mourn 
Blend in one voice its bitter cry, 

The wail to heaven's high arches borne 
Would echo through the caverned sky. 



II 



O happiest land, whose peaceful choice 
Fills with a breath its empty throne ! 

God, speaking through thy people's voice, 
Has made that voice for once his own. 

No angry passion shakes the state 
Whose weary servant seeks for rest, 

And who could fear that scowling hate 
Would strike at that unguarded breast ? 

He stands, unconscious of his doom, 
In manly strength, erect, serene; 

Around him Summer spreads her bloom; 
He falls, — what horror clothes the scene ! 



How swift the sudden flash of woe 

Where all was bright as childhood's 
dream ! 

As if from heaven's ethereal bow 

Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. 

Blot the foul deed from history's page; 

Let not the all-betraying sun 
Blush for the clay that stains an age 

When murder's blackest wreath was 



won. 



Ill 



Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, 
The weary battle-ground of pain: 

Love tends his pillow; Science tries 
Her every art, alas ! in vain. 

The strife endures how long ! how long ! 

Life, death, seem balanced in the scale, 
While round his bed a viewless throng 

Await each morrow's changing tale. 

In realms the desert ocean parts 

What myriads watch with tear-filled 
eyes, 
His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, 

His breathings counted with their sighs ! 

Slowly the stores of life are spent, 
Yet hope still battles with despair ; 

Will Heaven not yield when knees are 
bent ? 
Answer, O thou that hearest prayer ! 

But silent is the brazen sky; 

On sweeps the meteor's threatening 
train, 
Unswerving Nature's mute reply, 

Bound in her adamantine chain. 

Not ours the verdict to decide 

Whom death shall claim or skill shall 
save; 
The hero's life though Heaven denied, 

It gave our land a martyr's grave. 

Nor count the teaching vainly sent 

How human hearts their griefs may 
share, — 
The lesson woman's love has lent, 

What hope may do, what faith can 
bear ! 



290 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



Farewell ! the leaf-strown earth enfolds 
Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears, 

And autumn's golden sun beholds 
A nation bowed, a world in tears. 



THE GOLDEN FLOWER 

When Advent dawns with lessening days, 

While earth awaits the angels' hymn; 
When bare as branching coral sways 

In whistling winds each leafless limb; 
When spring is but a spendthrift's dream, 

And summer's wealth a wasted dower, 
Nor dews nor sunshine may redeem, — 

Then autumn coins his Golden Flower. 

Soft was the violet's vernal hue, 

Fresh was the rose's morning red, 
Full-orbed the stately dahlia grew, — 

All gone ! their short-lived splendors 
shed. 
The shadows, lengthening, stretch at noon; 

The fields are stripped, the groves are 
dumb; 
The frost-flowers greet the icy moon, — 

Then blooms the bright chrysanthemum. 

The stiffening turf is white with snow, 

Yet still its radiant disks are seen 
Where soon the hallowed morn will show 

The wreath and cross of Christmas 
green; 
As if in autumn's dying days 

It heard the heavenly song afar, 
And opened all its glowing rays, 

The herald lamp of Bethlehem's star. 

Orphan of summer, kindly sent 

To cheer the fading year's decline, 
In all that pitying Heaven has lent 

No fairer pledge of hope than thine. 
Yes ! June lies hid beneath the snow, 

And winter's unborn heir shall claim 
For every seed that sleeps below 

A spark that kindles into flame. 

Thy smile the scowl of winter braves, 

Last of the bright-robed, flowery train, 
Soft sighing o'er the garden graves, 

" Farewell ! farewell ! we meet again ! " 
So may life's chill November bring 

Hope's golden flower, the last of all, 
Before we hear the angels sing 

Where blossoms never fade and fall ! 



YOUTH 

[Read at the celebration of the thirty-first 
anniversary of the Boston Young Men's Chris- 
tian Union, May 31, 1882.] 

Why linger round the sunken wrecks 

Where old Armadas found their graves ? 
Why slumber on the sleepy decks 

While foam and clash the angry waves ? 
Up ! when the storm-blast rends the clouds, 

And winged with ruin sweeps the gale, 
Young feet must climb the quivering- 
shrouds, 

Young hands must reef the bursting 
sail ! 

Leave us to fight the tyrant creeds 

Who felt their shackles, feel their scars; 
The cheerful sunlight little heeds 

The brutes that prowled beneath the 
stars; 
The dawn is here, the day star shows 

The spoils of many a battle won, 
But sin and sorrow still are foes 

That face us in the morning sun. 

Who sleeps beneath yon bannered mound 

The proudly sorrowing mourner seeks, 
The garland-bearing crowd surrounds ? 

A light-haired boy with beardless cheeks ! 
'T is time this " fallen world " should 
rise; 

Let youth the sacred work begin ! 
What nobler task, what fairer prize 

Than earth to save and Heaven to win ? 



HAIL, COLUMBIA! 
1798 

THE FIRST VERSE OF THE SONG 

BY JOSEPH H0PK1NS0N 

; Hail, Columbia ! Happy land ! 
Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band, 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 
And when the storm of war was gone 
Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. 

Let independence be our boast, 

Ever mindful what it cost ; 

Ever grateful for the prize, 

Let its altar reach the skies. 



THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON 291 


" Firm — united — let us be, 


While the stars in heaven shall burn, 


Rallying round our Liberty ; 


While the ocean tides return, 


As a band of brothers join'd, 


Ever shall the circling sun 


Peace and safety we shall find." 


Find the Many still are One ! 


ADDITIONAL VERSES 


POEM 


WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMIT- 


FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN 


TEE FOR THE CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENNIAL 


AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, PRESENTED 


CELEBRATION AT PHILADELPHIA, 1S87 


BY GEORGE W. CHILDS, OF PHILADEL- 


Look our ransomed shores around, 


PHIA 

[Dated August 29, 1887.] 


Peace and safety we have found ! 






Welcome, thrice welcome is thy silvery 


Welcome, friends who once were foes, 


gleam, 


To all the conquering years have gained, — 


Thou long-imprisoned stream ! 


A nation's rights, a race unchained ! 


Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads 


Children of the day new-born, 


As plashing raindrops to the flowery 


Mindful of its glorious morn, 


meads, 


Let the pledge our fathers signed 


As summer's breath to Avon's whispering 


Heart to heart forever bind ! 


reeds ! 




From rock-walled channels, drowned in 


While the stars of heaven shall burn, 


rayless night, 


While the ocean tides return, 


Leap forth to life and light; 


Ever may the circling sun 


Wake from the darkness of thy troubled 


Find the Many still are One ! 


dream, 




And greet w r ith answering smile the morn- 


Graven deep with edge of steel, 


ing's beam ! 


Crowned with Victory's crimson seal, 




All the world their names shall read ! 


No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad 


All the world their names shall read, 


knows 


Enrolled with his, the Chief that led 


Than from thy chalice flows; 


The hosts whose blood for us was shed. 


Not the bright spring of Afric's sunny 


Pay our sires their children's debt, 


shores, 


Love and honor, nor forget 


Starry with spangles washed from golden 


Only Union's golden key 


ores, 


Guards the Ark of Liberty ! 


Nor glassy stream Bandusia's fountain 


While the stars of heaven shall burn, 


pours, 
Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair 


While the ocean tides return, 


Braids her loose-flowing hair, 


Ever may the circling sun 


Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose 


Find the Many still are One ! 


Where chill Arveiron steals from Alpine 


Hail, Columbia ! strong and free, 


snows. 


Throned in hearts from sea to sea ! 


Here shall the traveller stay his weary feet 


Thy march triumphant still pursue ! 


To seek thy calm retreat; 


Thy march triumphant still pursue 


Here at high noon the brown-armed reaper 


With peaceful stride from zone to zone, 


rest ; 


Till Freedom finds the world her own ! 


Here, when the shadows, lengthening from 


Blest in Union's holy ties, 


the west, 


Let our grateful song arise, 


Call the mute song-bird to his leafy nest, 


Every voice its tribute lend, 


Matron and maid shall chat the cares away 


All in loving chorus blend ! 


That brooded o'er the day, 



292 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



While flocking round them troops of chil- 
dren meet, 

And all the arches ring with laughter 
sweet. 

Here shall the steed, his patient life who 

spends 
In toil that never ends, 
Hot from his thirsty tramp o'er hill and 

plain, 
Plunge his red nostrils, while the torturing 

rein 
Drops in loose loops beside his floating 

mane; 
Nor the poor brute that shares his master's 

lot 
Find his small needs forgot, — 
Truest of humble, long-enduring friends, 
Whose presence cheers, whose guardian 

care defends! 

Here lark and thrush and nightingale shall 
sip, 
And skimming swallows dip, 

And strange shy wanderers fold their lus- 
trous plumes 

Fragrant from bowers that lent their sweet 
perfumes 

Where Psestum's rose or Persia's lilac 
blooms ; 

Here from his cloud the eagle stoop to 
drink 
At the full basin's brink, 

And whet his beak against its rounded lip, 

His glossy feathers glistening as they drip. 

Here shall the dreaming poet linger long, 

Far from his listening throng, — 
Nor lute nor lyre his trembling hand shall 

bring ; 
Here no frail Muse shall imp her crippled 

wing, 
No faltering minstrel strain his throat to 

sing ! 
These hallowed echoes who shall dare to 

claim 
Whose tuneless voice would shame, 
Whose jangling chords with jarring notes 

would wrong 
The nymphs that heard the Swan of Avon's 

song ? 

What visions greet the pilgrim's raptured 
eyes ! 
What ghosts made real rise! 



The dead return, — they breathe, — they 
live again, 

Joined by the host of Fancy's airy train, 

Fresh from the springs of Shakespeare's 
quickening brain ! 

The stream that slakes the soul's diviner 
thirst 
Here found the sunbeams first; 

Rich with his fame, not less shall memory 
prize 

The gracious gift that humbler wants sup- 
plies. 

O'er the wide waters reached the hand 
that gave 
To all this bounteous wave, 

With health and strength and joyous beauty 
fraught ; 

Blest be the generous pledge of friendship, 
brought 

From the far home of brothers' love, un- 
bought ! 

Long may fair Avon's fountain flow, en- 
rolled 
With storied shrines of old, 

Castalia's spring, Egeria's dewy cave, 

And Horeb's rock the God of Israel clave ! 

Land of our fathers, ocean makes us two, 

But heart to heart is true ! 
Proud is your towering daughter in theWest, 
Yet in her burning life-blood reign confest 
Her mother's pulses beating in her breast. 
This holy fount, whose rills from heaven 

descend, 
Its gracious drops shall lend, — 
Both foreheads bathed in that baptismal 

dew, 
And love make one the old home and the 

new ! 



TO THE POETS WHO ONLY 
READ AND LISTEN 

When evening's shadowy fingers fold 

The flowers of every hue, 
Some shy, half-opened bud will hold 

Its drop of morning's dew. 

Sweeter with every sunlit hour 
The trembling sphere has grown, 

Till all the fragrance of the flower 
Becomes at last its own. 



TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



293 



We that have sung perchance may find 

Our little meed of praise, 
And round our pallid temples bind 

The wreath of fading- bays: 

Ah, Poet, who has never spent 

Thy breath in idle strains, 
For thee the dewdrop morning lent 

Still in thy heart remains ; 

Unwasted, in its perfumed cell 

It waits the evening gale ; 
Then to the azure whence it fell 

Its lingering sweets exhale. 



FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE 
NEW CITY LIBRARY, BOSTON 

NOVEMBER 26, 1 888 

Proudly, beneath her glittering dome, 
Our three-hilled city greets the morn; 

Here Freedom found her virgin home, — 
The Bethlehem where her babe was 
born. 

The lordly roofs of traffic rise 

Amid the smoke of household fires ; 

High o'er them in the peaceful skies 

Faith points to heaven her clustering 
spires. 

Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign ? 

Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs 
rule ? 
Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain 

If darkening counsels cloud the school ? 

Let in the light ! from every age 

Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour, 

And, fixed on thought's electric page, 
Wait all their radiance to restore. 

Let in the light ! in diamond mines 

Their gems invite the hand that delves; 

So learning's treasured jewels shine 

Ranged on the alcove's ordered shelves. 

From history's scroll the splendor streams, 
From science leaps the living ray; 

Flashed from the poet's glowing dreams 
The opal fires of fancy play. 



Let in the light ! these windowed walls 
Shall brook no shadowing colonnades, 

But day shall flood the silent halls 
Till o'er yon hills the sunset fades. 

Behind the ever open gate 

No pikes shall fence a crumbling throne, 
No lackeys cringe, no courtiers wait, — 

This palace is the people's own ! 

Heirs of our narrow-girdled past, 
How fair the prospect we survey, 

Where howled unheard the wintry blast 
And rolled unchecked the storm-swept 
bay ! 

These chosen precincts, set apart 
For learned toil and holy shrines, 

Yield willing homes to every art 

That trains, or strengthens, or refines. 

Here shall the sceptred mistress reign 
Who heeds her meanest subject's call, 

Sovereign of all their vast domain, 

The queen, the handmaid of them all ! 



TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

AT THE DINNER GIVEN IN HIS HONOR 
AT THE TAVERN CLUB, ON HIS SEVEN- 
TIETH BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1 889 

A health to him whose double wreath 

displays 
The critic's ivy and the poet's bays; 
Who stayed not till with undisputed claim 
The civic garland filled his meed of fame ; 
True knight of Freedom, ere her doubtful 

cause 
Rose from the dust to meet the world's 

applause, 
His country's champion on the bloodless 

field 
Where truth and manhood stand for spear 

and shield ! 

Who is the critic ? He who never skips 
The luckless passage where his author slips ; 
Slides o'er his merits, stumbles at his 

faults, 
Calls him a cripple if he sometimes halts. 
Rich in the caustic epithets that sting, 
The venom-vitriol malice loves to fling; 



294 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



His quill a feathered fang at hate's com- 
mand, 

His ink the product of his poison-gland, — 

Is this the critic ? Call him not a snake, — 

This noxious creature, — for the reptile's 
sake ! 
He is the critic who is first to mark 

The star of genius when its glimmering 
spark 

First pricks the sky, not waiting to pro- 
claim 

Its coming glory till it bursts in flame. 

He is the critic whose divining rod 

Tells where the waters hide beneath the sod; 

Whom studious search through varied lore 
has taught 

The streams, the rills, the fountain-heads, 
of thought; 

Who, if some careless phrase, some slip- 
shod clause, 

Crack Priscian's skull or break Quintil- 
ian's laws, 

Points out the blunder in a kindly way, 

Nor tries his larger wisdom to display. 

Where will you seek him ? Wander far 
and wide, 

Then turn and find him seated at your 
side ! 

Who is the poet ? He who matches 

rhymes 
In the last fashion of the new-born times; 
Sweats over sonnets till the toil seems 

worse 
Than Heaven intended in the primal 

curse ; 
Work, duties, pleasures, every claim for- 
gets. 
To shape his rondeaus and his triolets ? 
Or is it he whose random venture throws 
His lawless whimseys into moonstruck 

prose, 
Where they who worship the barbarian's 

creed 
Will find a rhythmic cadence as they read, 
As the pleased rustic hears a tune, or 

thinks 
He hears a tune, in every bell that clinks ? 
Are these the poets ? Though their pens 

should blot 
A thousand volumes, surely such are not. 
Who is the poet ? He whom Nature 

chose 
In that sweet season when she made the 

rose. 



Though with the changes of our colder 
clime 

His birthday will come somewhat out of 
time, 

Through all the shivering winter's frost 
and chill, 

The bloom and fragrance cling around it 
still. 

He is the poet who can stoop to read 

The secret hidden in a wayside weed; 

Whom June's warm breath with child- 
like rapture fills, 

Whose spirit "dances with the daffodils; " 

Whom noble deeds with noble thoughts in- 
spire 

And lend his verse the true Promethean fire ; 

Who drinks the waters of enchanted 
streams 

That wind and wander through the land of 
dreams ; 

For whom the unreal is the real world, 

Its fairer flowers with brighter dews im- 
pearled. 

He looks a mortal till he spreads his 
wings, — 

He seems an angel when he soars and sings ! 

Behold the poet ! Heaven his days pro- 
long, 

Whom Elmwood's nursery cradled into 



song ! 



Who is the patriot ? He who deftly 

bends 
To every shift that serves his private ends, 
His face all smiling while his conscience 

squirms, 
His back as limber as a canker worm's ; 
Who sees his country floundering through 

a drift, 
Nor stirs a hand the laboring wheel to 

lift, 
But trusts to Nature's leisure-loving law, 
And waits with patience for the snow to 

thaw? 
Or is he one who, called to conflict, 

draws 
His trusty weapon in his country's cause; 
Who, born a poet, grasps his trenchant 

rhymes 
And strikes unshrinking at the nation's 

crimes ; 
Who in the days of peril learns to teach 
The wisest lessons in the homeliest speech; 
Whose plain good sense, alive with tingling 

wit, 



BUT ONE TALENT 



2 95 



Can always find a handle that will fit ; 

"Who touches lightly with Ithuriel spear 

The toad close squatting at the people's 
ear, 

And bids the laughing, scornful world de- 
scry 

The masking demon, the incarnate lie ? 

This, this is he his country well may say 

Is fit to share her savior's natal day ! 

Think not the date a worn - out king 
assigned 

As Life's full measure holds for all man- 
kind ; 

Shall Gladstone, crowned with eighty 
years, withdraw ? 

See, nearer home, the Lion of the Law — 

How Court Street trembles when he leaves 
his den, 

Clad in the pomp of four score vears and 
ten! 

Once more the health of Nature's favored 

son, 
The poet, critic, patriot, all in one ; 
Health, honor, friendship, ever round him 

wait 
In life's fair field beyond the seven-barred 

gate ! 



BUT ONE TALENT 

Ye who yourselves of larger worth esteem 
Than common mortals, listen to my dream, 
And learn the lesson of life's cozening 
cheat, 

The coinage of conceit. 

— The angel, guardian of my youth and 

age, 
Spread out before me an account-book's 

page, 
Saying, " This column marks what thou 

dost owe, — 

The gain thou hast to show." 

" Spirit," I said, " I know, alas ! too well 
How poor the tale thy record has to tell. 
Much I received, — the little I have 
brought 

Seems by its side as naught. 

" Five talents, all of Ophir's purest gold, 
These five fair caskets ranged before thee 
hold; 



The first can show a few poor shekels' gain, 
The rest unchanged remain. 

" Bringing my scanty tribute, overawed, 
To Him who reapeth where He hath not 

strawed, 
I tremble like a culprit when I count 
My whole vast debt's amount. 

" AVhat will He say to one from whom 

were due 
Ten talents, when he comes with less than 

two? 
What can I do but shudder and await 
The slothful servant's fate ? " 

— As looks a mother on an erring child, 
The angel looked me in the face and 

smiled : 
"How couldst thou, reckoning with thy- 
self, contrive 

To count thy talents five ? 

" These caskets which thy flattering fan- 
cies gild 

Not all with Ophir's precious ore are 
filled; 

Thy debt is slender, for thy gift was small: 
One talent, — that was all. 

" This second casket, with its grave pre- 
tence, 

Is weighty with thine ignorance, dark 
and dense, 

Save for a single glowworm's glimmering 
light 

To mock its murky night 

" The third conceals the dulness that was 
thine. 

How could thy mind its lack of wit di- 
vine ? 

Let not what Heaven assigned thee bring 
thee blame; 

Thy want is not thy shame. 

" The fourth, so light to lift, so fair to see, 
Is filled to bursting with thy vanity, 
The vaporous breath that kept thy hopes 
alive 

By counting one as five. 

" These held but little, but the fifth held 

less, — 
Only blank vacuum, naked nothingness, 



296 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



An idiot's portion. He who gave it knows 
Its claimant nothing owes. 

" Thrice happy pauper he whose last ac- 
count 

Shows on the debtor side the least amount! 

The more thy gifts, the more thou needs 
must pay 

On life's dread reckoning day." 

— Humbled, not grieving to be undeceived, 
I woke, from fears of hopeless debt re- 
lieved: 
For sparing gifts but small returns are 
due, — 

Thank Heaven I had so few ! 



FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. 
MARGARET'S 

IN MEMORY OF A SON OF ARCHDEACON 
FARRAR 

Afar, he sleeps whose name is graven here, 
Where loving hearts his early doom de- 
plore ; 
Youth, promise, virtue, all that made him 
dear 
Heaven lent, earth borrowed, sorrowing 
to restore. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 

1819-1891 

Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song 
for the choir 
That filled our groves with music till the 

Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, 
And evening listened for thy lingering 
lay. 

But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar 
Where strains celestial blend their notes 
with thine ; 
Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier 
star 
Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we 
resign. 

How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat 
Where passed in peace thy love-enchanted 
hours ! 



Where shall she find an eye like thine to 
greet 
Spring's earliest footprints on her open- 
ing flowers ? 

Have the pale wayside weeds no fond re- 
gret 
For him who read the secrets they enfold? 
Shall the proud spangles of the field for- 
get 
The verse that lent new glory to their 
gold ? 

And ye whose carols wooed his infant ear, 
Whose chants with answering woodnotes 
he repaid, 
Have ye no song his spirit still may hear 
From Elmwood's vaults of overarching 
shade ? 

Friends of his studious hours, who thronged 
to teach 
The deep-read scholar all your varied 
lore, 
Shall he no longer seek your shelves to 
reach 
The treasure missing from his world- 
wide store ? 



This singer whom we long have held so 
dear 
Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, 
and fair ; 
Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear, 
Easy of converse, courteous, debonair, 

Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot, 
Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest 
ways; 
At home alike in castle or in cot, 

True to his aim, let others blame or 
praise. 

Freedom he found an heirloom from his 
sires ; 
Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years 
in turn; 
All went to feed the nation's altar-fires 
Whose mourning children wreathe his 
funeral urn. 

He loved New England, — people, lan- 
guage, soil, 
Unweaned by exile from her arid breast. 



IN MEMORY OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



297 



Farewell awhile, white - handed son of 
toil, 
Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy 
rest. 

Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade ! 
Poet and patriot, every gift was thine ; 
Thy name shall live while summers bloom 
and fade, 
And grateful Memory guard thy leafy 
shrine ! 



IN MEMORY OF JOHN GREEN- 
LEAF WHITTIER 

DECEMBER 1 7, 1807 — SEPTEMBER 7, 1 892 

Thou, too, hast left us. While with heads 
bowed low, 
And sorrowing hearts, we mourned our 
summer's dead, 
The flying season bent its Parthian bow, 
And yet again our mingling tears were 
shed. 

Was Heaven impatient that it could not 
wait 
The blasts of winter for earth's fruits to 
fall? 
Were angels crowding round the open 
gate 
To greet the spirits coming at their 
call? 

Nay, let not fancies, born of old be- 
liefs, 
Play with the heart-beats that are throb- 
bing still, 
And waste their outworn phrases on the 
griefs, 
The silent griefs that words can only 
chill. 

For thee, clear friend, there needs no high- 
wrought lay, 
To shed its aureole round thy cherished 
name, — 
Thou whose plain, home-born speech of 
Yea and Nay 
Thy truthful nature ever best became. 

Death reaches not a spirit such as thine, — 
It can but steal the robe that hid thy 
wings ; 



Though thy warm breathing presence we 
resign, 
Still in our hearts its loving semblance 
clings. 

Peaceful thy message, yet for struggling 
right, — 
When Slavery's gauntlet in our face was 
flung, — 
While timid weaklings watched the dubi- 
ous fight 
No herald's challenge more defiant rung. 

Yet was thy spirit tuned to gentle themes 
Sought in the haunts thy humble youth 
had known. 
Our stern New England's hills and vales 
and streams, — 
Thy tuneful idyls made them all their own. 

The wild flowers springing from thy native 
sod 
Lent all their charms thy new-world 
song to fill, — 
Gave thee the mayflower and the golden-rod 
To match the daisy and the daffodil. 

In the brave records of our earlier time 
A hero's deed thy generous soul inspired, 

And many a legend, told in ringing rhyme, 
The youthful soul with high resolve has 
fired. 

Not thine to lean on priesthood's broken 
reed; 
No barriers caged thee in a bigot's fold; 
Did zealots ask to syllable thy creed, 

Thou saidst " Our Father," and thy creed 
was told. 

Best loved and saintliest of our singing 
train, 
Earth's noblest tributes to thy name be- 
long. 
A lifelong record closed without a stain, 
A blameless memory shrined in deathless 
song. 

Lift from its quarried ledge a flawless 
stone ; 
Smooth the green turf and bid the tablet 
rise, 
And on its snow-white surface carve alone 
These words, — he needs no more, — 
Here Whittier lies. 



298 



BEFORE THE CURFEW 



TO THE TEACHERS OF AMERICA 

[During- a session in Boston of the National 
Educational Association, in February, 1893, Mr. 
Houghton and other publishers gave a recep- 
tion for the purpose of introducing resident 
authors to the members of the association. It 
was on this occasion, February 23, 1893, that 
Dr. Holmes read the following verses.] 

Teachers of teachers ! Yours the task, 
Noblest that noble minds can ask, 
High up Aonia's murmurous mount, 
To watch, to guard the sacred fount 

That feeds the streams below; 
To guide the hurrying flood that fills 
A thousand silvery rippling rills 

In ever-widening flow. 

Rich is the harvest from the fields 
That bounteous Nature kindly yields, 
But fairer growths enrich the soil 
Ploughed deep by thought's unwearied toil 

In Learning's broad domain. 
And where the leaves, the flowers, the 

fruits, 
Without your watering at the roots, 

To fill each branching vein ? 

Welcome ! the Author's firmest friends, 
Your voice the surest Godspeed lends. 
Of you the growing mind demands 
The patient care, the guiding hands, 

Through all the mists of morn. 
And knowing well the future's need, 
Your prescient wisdom sows the seed 

To flower in years unborn. 



HYMN 

WRITTEN FOR THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNI- 
VERSARY OF THE REORGANIZATION OF 
THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN 
UNION, MAY 31, 1893 

TUNE, "DUNDEE" 

Our Father ! while our hearts unlearn 
The creeds that wrong thy name, 

Still let our hallowed altars burn 
With Faith's undying flame ! 

Not by the lightning-gleams of wrath 
Our souls thy face shall see, 



The star of Love must light the path 
That leads to Heaven and Thee. 

Help us to read our Master's will 
Through every darkening stain 

That clouds his sacred image still, 
And see Him once again, 

The brother man, the pitying friend 
Who weeps for human woes, 

Whose pleading words of pardon blend 
With cries of raging foes. 

If 'mid the gathering storms of doubt, 
Our hearts grow faint and cold, 

The strength we cannot live without 
Thy love will not withhold. 

Our prayers accept ; our sins forgive ; 

Our youthful zeal renew; 
Shape for us holier lives to live, 

And nobler work to do ! 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 

SEPTEMBER 1 6, 1 823 — NOVEMBER 8, 1 893 

Read at the memorial meeting of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. 

He rests from toil; the portals of the 
tomb 
Close on the last of those unwearying 
hands 
That wove their pictured webs in History's 
loom, 
Rich with the memories of three distant 
lands. 

One wrought the record of the Royal Pair 
Who saw the great Discoverer's sail un- 
furled, 
Happy his more than regal prize to share, 
The spoils, the wonders, of the sunset 
world. 

There, too, he found his theme; upreared 
anew, 
Our eyes beheld the vanished Aztec 
shrines, 
And all the silver splendors of Peru 

That lured the conqueror to her fatal 
mines. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



299 



Nor less remembered he who told the tale 
Of empire wrested from the strangling 
sea; 
Of Leyden's woe, that turned his readers 
pale, 
The price of unborn freedom yet to be; 

Who taught the New World what the Old 
could teach; 
Whose silent hero, peerless as our 
own, 
By deeds that mocked the feeble breath of 
speech 
Callecl up to life a State without a 
Throne. 

As year by year his tapestry unrolled, 
What varied wealth its growing length 
displayed ! 
What long processions flamed in cloth of 
gold ! 
What stately forms their flowing robes 
arrayed ! 

Not such the scenes our later craftsman 
drew; 
Not such the shapes his darker pattern 
held; 
A deeper shadow lent its sober hue, 

A sadder tale his tragic task compelled. 

He told the red man's story; far and wide 
He searched the unwritten records of his 
race; 
He sat a listener at the Sachem's side, 
He tracked the hunter through his wild- 
wood chase. 



screamed; 

The wolf's long howl rang nightly; 
through the vale 



Tramped the lone bear; the panther's eye- 
balls gleamed ; 
The bison's gallop thundered on the gale. 

Soon o'er the horizon rose the cloud of 
strife, — 
Two proud, strong nations battling for 
the prize, — 
Which swarming host should mould a na- 
tion's life, 
Which royal banner float the western 
skies. 

Long raged the conflict; on the crimson sod 
Native and alien joined their hosts in 
vain; 
The lilies withered where the Lion trod, 
Till Peace lay panting on the ravaged 
plain. 

A nobler task was theirs who strove to win 
The blood-stained heathen to the Chris- 
tian fold, 
To free from Satan's clutch the slaves of 
sin; 
Their labors, too, with loving grace he 
told. 

Halting with feeble step, or bending o'er 
The sweet-breathed roses which he loved 
so well, 
While through long years his burdening 
cross he bore, 
From those firm lips no coward accents 
fell. 

A brave, bright memory ! his the stainless 
shield 
No shame defaces and no envy mars ! 
When our far future's record is unsealed, 
His name will shine among its morning 
stars. 



POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS 



TO THE ELEVEN LADIES 

WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER 
LOVING CUP ON THE TWENTY-NINTH 
OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX 

" Who gave this cup ? " The secret thou 

wouldst steal 
Its brimming flood forbids it to reveal: 
No mortal's eye shall read it till he first 
Cool the red throat of thirst. 

If on the golden floor one draught remain, 
Trust me, thy careful search will be in 

vain; 
Not till the bowl is emptied shalt thou 

know 
The names enrolled below. 

Deeper than Truth lies buried in her well 
Those modest names the graven letters spell 
Hide from the sight; but wait, and thou 
shalt see 
Who the good angels be 

Whose bounty glistens in the beauteous gift 
That friendly hands to loving lips shall 

lift: 
Turn the fair goblet when its floor is dry, — 
Their names shall meet thine eye. 

Count thou their number on the beads of 

Heaven: 
Alas ! the clustered Pleiads are but seven; 
Nay, the nine sister Muses are too few, — 
The Graces must add two. 

" For whom this gift ? " For one who all 

too long 
Clings to his bough among the groves of 

song; 
Autumn's last leaf, that spreads its faded 

wing 
To greet a second spring. 



Dear friends, kind friends, whate'er the 

cup may hold, 
Bathing its burnished depths, will chan| 

to gold: 
Its last bright drop let thirsty Msenac 

drain, 
Its fragrance will remain. 

Better love's perfume in the empty bowl 
Then wine's nepenthe for the aching soul ; 
Sweeter than song that ever poet sung, 
It makes an old heart young ! 



THE PEAU DE CHAGRIN O] 
STATE STREET 

How beauteous is the'^bond 
In the manifold array 
Of its promises to pay, 
While the eight per cent it gives 
And the rate at which one lives 
Correspond ! 

But at last the bough is bare 
Where the coupons one by one 
Through their ripening days have run, 
And the bond, a beggar now, 
Seeks investment anyhow, 
Anywhere ! 



CACOETHES SCRIBENDI 

If all the trees in all the woods were men; 
And each and every blade of grass a pen; 
If every leaf on every shrub and tree 
Turned to a sheet of foolscap ; every sea 
Were changed to ink, and all earth's living 

tribes 
Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, 
And for ten thousand ages, day and night, 
The human race should write, and write, 

and write, 



300 



TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE 



301 



Till all the pens and paper were used up, 
And the huge inkstand was an empty cup, 
Still would the scribblers clustered round 

its brink 
Call for more pens, more paper, and more 

ink. 



THE ROSE AND THE FERN 

Lady, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou 
learn, 
Come thou with me to Love's enchanted 
bower : 
High overhead the trellised roses burn; 
Beneath thy feet behold the feathery 
fern, — 
A leaf without a flower. 

What though the rose leaves fall ? They 
still are sweet, 
And have been lovely in their beauteous 
prime, 
While the bare frond seems ever to re- 
peat, 
" For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet 
The joyous flowering time ! " 

Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to 
tread 
And flowers to cherish; summer round 
thee glows ; 
Wait not till autumn's fading robes are 

shed, 
But while its petals still are burning red 
Gather life's full-blown rose ! 



I LIKE YOU AND I LOVE YOU 

I like you met I love you, face to face ; 
The path was narrow, and they could not 

pass. 
I like you smiled; I love you cried, 
Alas ! 
And so they halted for a little space. 

" Turn thou and go before," I love you 
said, 
" Down the green pathway, bright with 

many a flower; 
Deep in the valley, lo ! my bridal bower 
Awaits thee." But I like you shook his 
head. 



Then while they lingered on the span-wide 
shelf 
That shaped a pathway round the rocky 

ledge, 
I like you bared his icy dagger's edge, 
And first he slew I love you, — then him- 
self. 

LA MAISON D'OR 

(bar harbor) 

From this fair home behold on either side 
The restful mountains or the restless sea: 

So the warm sheltering walls of life divide 
Time and its tides from still eternity. 

Look on the waves: their stormy voices 
teach 
That not on earth may toil and struggle 
cease. 
Look on the mountains: better far than 
speech 
Their silent promise of eternal peace. 



TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE 

Too young for love ? 

Ah, say not so ! 
Tell reddening rosebuds not to blow ! 
Wait not for spring to pass away, — 
Love's summer months begin with May ! 

Too young for love ? 

Ah, say not so ! 

Too young ? Too young ? 

Ah, no ! no ! no ! 

Too young for love ? 

Ah, say not so, 
While daisies bloom and tulips glow ! 
June soon will come with lengthened day 
To practise all love learned in May. 

Too young for love ? 

Ah, say not so ! 

Too young ? Too young ? 

Ah, no ! no ! no ! 



THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, 
THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES 

If there are any anachronisms or other inac- 
curacies in this story, the reader will please to 
remember that the narrator's memory is liable 
to be at fault, and if the event recorded inter- 



302 



POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS 



ests him, will not worry over any little slips or 
stumbles. 

The terrible witchcraft drama of 1692 has 
been seriously treated, as it well deserves to 
be. The story has been told in two large 
volumes by the Rev. Charles Wentworth 
Upham, and in a small and more succinct 
volume, based upon his work, by his daughter- 
in-law, Caroline E. Upham. 

The delusion, commonly spoken of as if it 
belonged to Salem, was more widely diffused 
through the towns of Essex County. Looking 
upon it as a pitiful and long dead and buried 
superstition, I trust my poem will no more 
offend the good people of Essex County than 
Tarn O'Shanter worries the honest folk of 
Ayrshire. 

The localities referred to are those with 
which I am familiar in my drives about Essex 
County. 

Look out ! Look out, boys ! Clear the 

track ! 
The witches are here ! They 've all come 

back ! 
They hanged them high, — No use ! No 

use ! 
What cares a witch for a hangman's noose ? 
They buried them deep, but they would n't 

lie still, 
For cats and witches are hard to kill; 
They swore they should n't and would n't 

die, — 
Books said they did, but they lie ! they lie ! 

A couple of hundred years, or so, 
They had knocked about in the world below, 
When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call, 
And a homesick feeling seized them all; 
For he came from a place they knew full 

well, 
And many a tale he had to tell. 
They longed to visit the haunts of men, 
To see the old dwellings they knew again, 
And ride on their broomsticks all around 
Their wide domain of unhallowed ground. 

In Essex county there 's many a roof 
Well known to him of the cloven hoof; 
The small square windows are full in view 
Which the midnight hags went sailing 

through, 
On their well-trained broomsticks mounted 

high, 
Seen like shadows against the sky; 
Crossing the track of owls and bats, 
Hugging before them their coal-black cats. 



Well did they know, those gray old wives, 
The sights we see in our daily drives: 
Shimmer of lake and shine of sea, 
Browne's bare hill with its lonely tree, 
(It was n't then as we see it now, 
With one scant scalp-lock to shade its 

brow;) 
Dusky nooks in the Essex woods, 
Dark, dim, Dante-like solitudes, 
Where the tree-toad watches the sinuous 

snake 
Glide through his forests of fern and 

brake ; 
Ipswich River; its old stone bridge; 
Far off Andover's Indian Ridge, 
And many a scene where history tells 
Some shadow of bygone terror dwells, — 
Of " Norman's Woe " with ts tale of 

dread, 
Of the Screeching Woman of Marblehead, 
(The fearful story that turns men pale: 
Don't bid me tell it, — my speech would 

fail.) 

Who would not, will not, if he can, 
Bathe in the breezes of fair Cape Ann, — 
Rest in the bowers her bays enfold, 
Loved by the sachems and squaws of old ? 
Home where the white magnolias bloom, 
Sweet with the bayberry's chaste perfume, 
Hugged by the woods and kissed by the 

sea ! 
Where is the Eden like to thee ? 
For that " couple of hundred years, or 

so," 
There had been no peace in the world be- 
low; 
The witches still grumbling, "It isn't 

fair; 
Come, give us a taste of the upper air ! 
We 've had enough of your sulphur springs, 
And the evil odor that round them clings ; 
We long for a drink that is cool and 

nice, — 
Great buckets of water with Wenham ice ; 
We 've served you well up-stairs, you 

know; 
You 're a good old — fellow — come, let us 
go!" 

I don't feel sure of his being good, 

But he happened to be in a pleasant 

mood, — 
As fiends with their skins full sometimes 



THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN 



3°3 



(He 'd been drinking with " roughs " at a 

Boston bar.) 
So what does he do but up and shout 
To a graybeard turnkey, " Let 'em out ! " 

To mind his orders was all he knew; 

The gates swung open, and out they flew. 

" Where are our broomsticks ? " the bel- 
dams cried. 

" Here are your broomsticks," an imp re- 
plied. 

" They 've been in — the place you know — 
so long 

They smell of brimstone uncommon strong; 

But they 've gained by being left alone, — 

Just look, and you '11 see how tall they 've 
grown." 

" And where is my cat ? " a vixen squalled. 

" Yes, where are our cats ? " the witches 
bawled, 

And began to call them all by name: 

As fast as they called the cats, they came: 

There was bob-tailed Tommy and long- 
tailed Tim, 

And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, 

And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged 
Beau, 

And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and 
Joe, 

And many another that came at call, — 

It would take too long to count them all. 

All black, — one could hardly tell which 
was which, 

But every cat knew his own old witch; 

And she knew hers as hers knew her, — 

Ah, did n't they curl their tails and purr ! 

No sooner the withered hags were free 

Than out they swarmed for a midnight 
spree ; 

I could n't tell all they did in rhymes, 

But the Essex people had dreadful times. 

The Swampscott fishermen still relate 

How a strange sea-monster stole their bait; 

How their nets were tangled in loops and 
knots, 

And they found dead crabs in their lobster- 
pots. 

Poor Danvers grieved for her blasted crops, 

And Wilmington mourned over mildewed 
hops. 

A blight played havoc with Beverly 
beans, — 

It was all the work of those hateful queans ! 

A dreadful panic began at " Pride's," 



Where the witches stopped in their mid- 
night rides, 

And there rose strange rumors and vague 
alarms 

'Mid the peaceful dwellers at Beverly 
Farms. 

Now when the Boss of the Beldams found 
That without his leave they were ramping 

round, 
He called, — they could hear him twenty 

miles, 
From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles; 
The deafest old granny knew his tone 
Without the trick of the telephone. 
" Come here, you witches ! Come here ! " 

says he, — 
" At your games of old, without asking 

me ! 
I '11 give you a little job to do 
That will keep you stirring, you godless 

crew ! " 

They came, of course, at their master's call, 
The witches, the broomsticks, the cats, and 

all; 
He led the hags to a railway train 
The horses were trying to drag in vain. 
"Now, then," says he, "you've had your 

fun, 
And here are the cars you 've got to run. 
The driver may just unhitch his team, 
We don't want horses, we don't want 

steam ; 
You may keep your old black cats to hug, 
But the loaded train you 've got to lug." 

Since then on many a car you '11 see 

A broomstick plain as plain can be; 

On every stick there 's a witch astride, — 

The string you see to her leg is tied. 

She will do a mischief if she can, 

But the string is held by a careful man, 

And whenever the evil-minded witch 

Would cut some caper, he gives a twitch. 

As for the hag, you can't see her, 

But hark ! you can hear her black cat's 

purr, 
And now and then, as a car goes by, 
You may catch a gleam from her wicked 

eye. 
Often you 've looked on a rushing train, 
But just what moved it was not so plain. 
It could n't be those wires above, 
For they could neither pull nor shove ; 



3°4 



POEMS FROM OVER THE TEACUPS 



Where was the motor that made it go 
You could u't guess, but now you know. 

Remember my rhymes when you ride again 
On the rattling rail by the broomstick 
train ! 

TARTARUS 

While in my simple gospel creed 
That " God is Love " so plain I read, 
Shall dreams of heathen birth affright 
My pathway through the coming night ? 
Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale 
Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, 
With Thee my faltering steps to aid, 
How can I dare to be afraid ? 

Shall mouldering page or fading scroll 
Outface the charter of the soul ? 
Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect 
The wrong our human hearts reject, 
And smite the lips whose shuddering cry 
Proclaims a cruel creed a lie ? 
The wizard's rope we disallow 
Was justice once, — is murder now ! 

Is there a world of blank despair, 
And dwells the Omnipresent there ? 
Does He behold with smile serene 
The shows of that unending scene, 
Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies, 
And, ever dying, never dies ? 
Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan, 
And is that child of wrath his own ? 

O mortal, wavering in thy trust, 
Lift thy pale forehead from the dust ! 
The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes 
Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies ! 
When the blind heralds of despair 
Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, 
Look up from earth, and read above 
On heaven's blue tablet, God is Love ! 



AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD 

The glory has passed from the goldenrod's 

plume, 
The purple-hued asters still linger in 

bloom : 
The birch is bright yellow, the sumachs 

are red, 
The maples like torches aflame overhead. 



But what if the joy of the summer is past, 
And winter's wild herald is blowing his 

blast ? 
For me dull November is sweeter than 

May, 
For my love is its sunshine, — she meets 

me to-day ! 

Will she come ? Will the ring-dove re- 
turn to her nest ? 

Will the needle swing back from the east 
or the west ? 

At the stroke of the hour she will be at her 
gate; 

A friend may prove laggard, — love never 
comes late. 

Do I see her afar in the distance ? Not 

yet. 
Too early ! Too early ! She could not 

forget ! 
When I cross the old bridge where the 

brook overflowed, 
She will flash full in sight at the turn of 

the road. 

I pass the low wall where the ivy entwines ; 
I tread the brown pathway that leads 

through the pines; 
I haste by the boulder that lies in the field, 
Where her promise at parting was lovingly 

sealed. 

Will she come by the hillside or round 

through the wood ? 
Will she wear her brown dress or her 

mantle and hood ? 
The minute draws near, — but her watch 

may go wrong; 
My heart will be asking, What keeps her so 

long ? 

Why doubt for a moment ? More shame 
if I do ! 

Why question ? Why tremble ? Are an- 
gels more true ? 

She would come to the lover who calls her 
his own 

Though she trod in the track of a whirling 
cyclone ! 

I crossed the old bridge ere the minute had 



I looked: lo ! my Love stood before me at 
last. 



INVITA MINERVA 



3°S 



Her eyes, how they sparkled, her cheeks, 

how they glowed, 
As we met, face to face, at the turn of the 

road ! 



INVITA MINERVA 

I find the burden and restrictions of rhyme 
more and more troublesome as I grow older. 
There are times when it seems natural enough 
to employ that form of expression, but it is 
only occasionally ; and the use of it as a vehi- 
cle of the commonplace is so prevalent that 
one is not mnch tempted to select it as the 
medium for his thoughts and emotions. The 
art of rhyming has almost become a part of a 
high-school education, and its practice is far 
from being an evidence of intellectual distinc- 
tion. Mediocrity is as much forbidden to the 
poet in our days as it was in those of Horace, 
and the immense majority of the verses written 
are stamped with hopeless mediocrity. 

When one of the ancient poets found he was 
trying to grind out verses which came unwill- 
ingly, he said he was writing Invito, Minerva. 



Vex not the Muse with idle prayers, — 

She will not hear thy call; 
She steals upon thee unawares, 

Or seeks thee not at all. 

Soft as the moonbeams when they sought 

Endymion's fragrant bower, 
She parts the whispering leaves of thought 

To show her full-blown flower. 

For thee her wooing hour has passed, 

The singing birds have flown, 
And winter comes with icy blast 

To chill thy buds unblown. 

Yet, though the woods no longer thrill 

As once their arches rung, 
Sweet echoes hover round thee still 

Of songs thy summer sung. 

Live in thy past; await no more 
The rush of heaven-sent wings; 

Earth still has music left in store 
While Memory sighs and sings. 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



FIVE STORIES AND A SEQUEL 



[In his volume, Songs in Many Keys, Dr. 
Holmes had a division, Pictures from Occasional 
Poems. He discarded his sub-title in the River- 



side Edition, but took from the group under 
that title five stories and reproduced them in a 
new setting under the above title.] 



TO MY OLD READERS 

You know " The Teacups," that congenial 
set 

Which round the Teapot you have often 
met; 

The grave Dictator, him you knew of 
old,— 

Knew as the shepherd of another fold: 

Grayer he looks, less youthful, but the 
same 

As when you called him by a different 
name. 
Near him the Mistress, whose expe- 
rienced skill 

Has taught her duly every cup to fill; 

"Weak;" "strong;" "cool;" "luke- 
warm; " "hot as you can pour; " 

"No sweetening;" "sugared;" "two 
lumps; " " one lump more." 
Next, the Professor, whose scholastic 
phrase 

At every turn the teacher's tongue be- 
trays, 

Trying so hard to make his speech precise 

The captious listener finds it overnice. 
Nor be forgotten our Annexes twain, 

Nor He, the owner of the squinting brain, 

Which, while its curious fancies we pursue, 

Oft makes us question, " Are we crack- 
brained too ? " 
Along the board our growing list ex- 
tends, 

As one by one we count our clustering 
friends, — 

The youthful Doctor waiting for his share 

Of fits and fevers when his crown gets 
bare; 



In strong, dark lines our square-nibbed 
pen should draw 

The lordly presence of the Man of Law; 

Our bashful Tutor claims a humbler 
place, 

A lighter touch, his slender form to trace. 

Mark the fair lady he is seated by, — 

Some say he is her lover, — some deny, — 

Watch them together, — time alone can 
show 

If dead-ripe friendship turns to love or no. 

Where in my list of phrases shall I seek 

The fitting words of Number Five to 
speak ? 

Such task demands a readier pen than 
mine, — 

What if I steal the Tutor's Valentine ? 
Why should I call her gracious, winning, 
fair ? 

Why with the loveliest of her sex compare ? 

Those varied charms have many a Muse in- 
spired, — 

At last their worn superlatives have tired ; 

Wit, beauty, sweetness, each alluring grace, 

All these in honeyed verse have found their 
place ; 

/ need them not, — two little words I find 

Which hold them all in happiest form com- 
bined • 

No more with baffled language will I strive, — 

All in one breath I utter: Number Five ! 
Now count our teaspoons — if you care 
to learn 

How many tinkling cups were served in 
turn, — 

Add all together, you will find them ten, — 

Our young Musician joined us now and 
then. 



306 



THE BANKER'S SECRET 



3°7 



Our bright Delilah you must needs re- 
call, 
The comely handmaid, youngest of us all ; 
Need I remind you how the little maid 
Came at a pinch to our Professor's aid, — 
Trimmed his long locks with unrelenting 

shears 
And eased his looks of half a score of 
years ? 

Sometimes, at table, as you well must 

know, 
The stream of talk will all at once run low, 
The air seems smitten with a sudden chill, 
The wit grows silent and the gossip still; 
This was our poet's chance, the hour of 

need, 
When rhymes and stories we were used to 

read. 
One day a whisper round the teacups 

stole, — 
" No scrap of paper in the silver howl ! " 
(Our " poet's corner " may I not expect 
My kindly reader still may recollect ?) 
" What ! not a line to keep our souls 

alive ? " 
Spoke in her silvery accents Xumber Five. 
" Xo matter, something we must find to 

read, — 
Find it or make it, — yes, we must in- 
deed ! 
Now I remember I have seen at times 
Some curious stories in a book of rhymes, — 
How certain secrets, long in silence sealed, 
In after days were guessed at or revealed. 
Those stories, doubtless, some of you must 

know, — 
They all were written many a year ago ; 
But an old story, be it false or true, 
Twice told, well told, is twice as good as 

new; 
Wait but three sips and I will go myself, 
And fetch the book of verses from its 

shelf." 
Xo time was lost in finding what she 

sought, — 
Gone but one moment, — lo ! the book is 

brought. 
" Xow, then, Professor, fortune has de- 
creed 
That you, this evening, shall be first to 

read, — 
Lucky for us that listen, for in fact 
Who reads this poem must know how to 

act." 



Right well she knew that in his greener 

age 
He had a mighty hankering for the stage. 
The patient audience had not long to wait; 
Pleased with his chance, he smiled and 

took the bait; 
Through his wild hair his coaxing fingers 

ran, — 
He spread the page before him and began. 



THE BANKER'S SECRET 

[When first published this bore the title The 
Banker's Dinner.] 

The Banker's dinner is the stateliest 

feast 
The town has heard of for a year, at least; 
The sparry lustres shed their broadest 

blaze, 
Damask and silver catch and spread the 

rays; 
The florist's triumphs crown the daintier 

spoil 
Won from the sea, the forest, or the soil; 
The steaming hot-house yields its largest 

pines, 
The sunless vaults unearth their oldest 

wines; 
With one admiring look the scene survey, 
And turn a moment from the bright dis- 
play. 

Of all the joys of earthly pride or power, 
What gives most life, worth living, in an 

hour ? 
When Victory settles on the doubtful 

fight 
And the last foeman wheels in panting 

flight, 
Xo thrill like this is felt beneath the sun; 
Life's sovereign moment is a battle won. 
But say what next ? To shape a Senate's 

choice, 
By the strong magic of the master's voice; 
To ride the stormy tempest of debate 
That whirls the wavering fortunes of the 

state. 
Third in the list, the happy lover's prize 
Is won by honeyed words from women's 

eyes. 
If some would have it first instead of third, 
So let it be, — I answer not a word. 



3 o8 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



The fourth, — sweet readers, let the 

thoughtless half 
Have its small shrug and inoffensive 

laugh; 
Let the grave quarter wear its virtuous 

frown, 
The stern half-quarter try to scowl us 

down ; 
But the last eighth, the choice and sifted 

few, 
Will hear my words, and, pleased, confess 

them true. 

Among the great whom Heaven has 

made to shine, 
How few have learned the art of arts, — 

to dine ! 
Nature, indulgent to our daily need, 
Kind-hearted mother ! taught us all to 

feed; 
But the chief art, — how rarely Nature 

flings 
This choicest gift among her social kings ! 
Say, man of truth, has life a brighter hour 
Than waits the chosen guest who knows 

his power ? 
He moves with ease, itself an angel 

charm, — 
Lifts with light touch my lady's jewelled 

arm, 
Slides to his seat, half leading and half led, 
Smiling but quiet till the grace is said, 
Then gently kindles, while by slow degrees 
Creep softly out the little arts that please; 
Bright looks, the cheerful language of the 

eye, 
The neat, crisp question and the gay 

reply,— 
Talk light and airy, such as well may pass 
Between the rested fork and lifted glass; — 
With play like this the earlier evening flies, 
Till rustling silks proclaim the ladies rise. 
His hour has come, — he looks along 

the chairs, 
As the Great Duke surveyed his iron 

squares. 
That 's the young traveller, — is n't much 

to show, — 
Fast on the road, but at the table slow. 
Next him, — you see the author in his 

look, — 
His forehead lined with wrinkles like a 

book, — 
Wrote the great history of the ancient 

Huns, — 



Holds back to fire among the heavy guns. 
Oh, there 's our poet seated at his side, 
Beloved of ladies, soft, cerulean-eyed. 
Poets are prosy in their common talk, 
As the fast trotters, for the most part, 

walk. 
And there 's our well-dressed gentleman, 

who sits, 
By right divine, no doubt, among the wits, 
Who airs his tailor's patterns when he 

walks, 
The man that often speaks, but never talks. 
Why should he talk, whose presence lends 

a grace 
To every table where he shows his face ? 
He knows the manual of the silver fork, 
Can name his claret — if he sees the cork, — 
Remark that " White-top " was considered 

fine, 
But swear the " Juno " is the better wine ; — 
Is not this talking ? Ask Quintilian's rules ; 
If they say No, the town has many fools. 
Pause for a moment, — for our eyes behold 
The plain unsceptred king, the man of gold, 
The thrice illustrious threefold million- 

naire ; 
Mark his slow-creeping, dead, metallic 

stare ; 
His eyes, dull glimmering, like the balance- 
pan 
That weighs its guinea as he weighs his 

man. 
Who 's next ? An artist in a satin tie 
Whose ample folds defeat the curious eye. 
And there 's the cousin, — must be asked, 

you know, — 
Looks like a spinster at a baby-show. 
Hope he is cool, — they set him next the 

door, — 
And likes his place, between the gap and 

bore. 
Next comes a Congressman, distinguished 

guest ! 
We don't count him, — they asked him 

with the rest; 
And then some white cravats, with well- 
shaped ties, 
And heads above them which their owners 

prize. 

Of all that cluster round the genial 
board, 
Not one so radiant as the banquet's lord. 
Some say they fancy, but they know not 
why, 



THE BANKER'S SECRET 



309 



A shade of trouble brooding in his eye, 

Nothing, perhaps, — the rooms are over- 
hot, — 

Yet see his cheek, — the dull-red burning 
spot, — 

Taste the brown sherry which he does not 
pass, — 

Ha ! That is brandy ; see him fill his glass ! 
But not forgetful of his feasting friends, 

To each in turn some lively word he sends; 

See how he throws his baited lines about, 

And plays his men as anglers play their 
trout. 

With the dry sticks all bonfires are be- 
gun; 

Bring the first fagot, proser number one ! 

A question drops among the listening crew 

And hits the traveller, pat on Timbuctoo. 

We 're on the Niger, somewhere near its 
source, — 

Not the least hurry, take the river's course 

Through Kissi, Foota, Kankan, Bammakoo, 

Bambarra, Sego, so to Timbuctoo, 

Thence down to Youri; — stop him if we 
can, 

We can't fare worse, — wake up the Con- 
gressman ! 

The Congressman, once on his talking legs, 

Stirs up his knowledge to its thickest dregs; 

Tremendous draught for dining men to 
quaff ! 

Nothing will choke him but a purpling 
laugh. 

A word, — a shout, — a mighty roar, — 't is 
clone ; 

Extinguished; lassoed by a treacherous pun. 
A laugh is priming to the loaded soul; 

The scattering shots become a steady roll, 

Broke by sharp cracks that run along the 
line, 

The light artillery of the talker's wine. 

The kindling goblets flame with golden 
dews, 

The hoarded flasks their tawny fire diffuse, 

And the Rhine's breast-milk gushes cold 
and bright, 

Pale as the moon and maddening as her 

\S itli crimson juice the thirsty southern sky 
Sucks from the hills where buried armies 

lie, 
So that the dreamy passion it imparts 
Is drawn from heroes' bones and lovers' 

hearts. 



But lulls will come; the flashing soul 

transmits 
Its gleams of light in alternating fits. 
The shower of talk that rattled down amain 
Ends in small patterings like an April's 

rain ; 
The voices halt ; the game is at a stand ; 
Now for a solo from the master-hand ! 
'T is but a story, — quite a simple 

thing, — 
An aria touched upon a single string, 
But every accent comes with such a grace 
The stupid servants listen in their place, 
Each with his waiter in his lifted hands, 
Still as a well-bred pointer when he stands. 
A query checks him: " Is he quite exact ? " 
(This from a grizzled, square-jawed man 

of fact.) 
The sparkling story leaves him to his fate, 
Crushed by a witness, smothered with a 

date, 
As a swift river, sown with many a star, 
Runs brighter, rippling on a shallow bar. 
The smooth divine suggests a graver doubt; 
A neat quotation bowls the parson out; 
Then, sliding gayly from his own display, 
He laughs the learned dulness all away. 

So, with the merry tale and jovial song, 
The jocund evening whirls itself along, 
Till the last chorus shrieks its loud encore, 
And the white neckcloths vanish through 

the door. 

One savage word ! — The menials know 

its tone, 
And slink away; the master stands alone. 
" Well played, by ; " breathe not what 

were best unheard; 
His goblet shivers while he speaks the 

word, — 
" If wine tells truth, — and so have said 

the wise, — 
It makes me laugh to think how brandy 

lies ! 
Bankrupt to - morrow, — millionnaire to- 
day, — 
The farce is over, — now begins the play ! " 
The spring he touches lets a panel glide ; 
An iron closet lurks beneath the slide, 
Bright with such treasures as a search 

might bring 
From the deep pockets of a truant king. 
Two diamonds, eyeballs of a god of bronze, 
Bought from his faithful priest, a pious 

bonze, 



3io 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



A string of brilliants; rubies, three or four; 

Bags of old coin and bars of virgin ore; 

A jewelled poniard and a Turkish knife, 

Noiseless and useful if we come to strife. 
Gone ! As a pirate flies before the wind, 

And not one tear for all he leaves behind ! 

From all the love his better years have 
known 

Fled like a felon, — ah ! but not alone ! 

The chariot flashes through a lantern's 
glare, — 

Oh the wild eyes ! the storm of sable hair ! 

Still to his side the broken heart will 
cling, — 

The bride of shame, the wife without the 
ring: 

Hark, the deep oath, — the wail of fren- 
zied woe, — 

Lost ! lost to hope of Heaven and peace 
below ! 

He kept his secret; but the seed of crime 

Bursts of itself in God's appointed time. 

The lives he wrecked were scattered far 
and wide; 

One never blamed nor wept, — she only 
died. 

None knew his lot, though idle tongues 
would say 

He sought a lonely refuge far away, 

And there, with borrowed name and al- 
tered mien, 

He died unheeded, as he lived unseen. 

The moral market had the usual chills 

Of Virtue suffering from protested bills; 

The White Cravats, to friendship's mem- 
ory true, 

Sighed for the past, surveyed the future 
too; 

Their sorrow breathed in one expressive 
line, — 

"Gave pleasant dinners; who has got his 
wine ? " 



The reader paused, — the Teacups knew 

his ways, — 
He, like the rest, was not averse to praise. 
Voices and hands united; every one 
Joined in approval : " Number Three, well 

done ! ' ' 

" Now for the Exile's story; if my wits 
Are not at fault, his curious record fits 
Neatly as sequel to the tale we 've heard ; 



Not wholly wild the fancy, nor absurd 
That this our island hermit well might be 
That story's hero, fled from over sea. 
Come, Number Seven, we would not have 

you strain 
The fertile powers of that inventive brain. 
Read us 'The Exile's Secret;' there's 

enough 
Of dream-like fiction and fantastic stuff 
In the strange web of mystery that invests 
The lonely isle where sea birds build their 

nests." 

" Lies ! naught but lies ! " so Number 

Seven began, — 
No harm was known of that secluded man. 
He lived alone, — who would n't if he 

might, 
And leave the rogues and idiots out of 

sight ? 
A foolish story, — still, I '11 do my best, — 
The house was real, — don't believe the 

rest. 
How could a ruined dwelling last so long 
Without its legends shaped in tale and 

song ? 
Who was this man of whom they tell the 

lies ? 
Perhaps — why not ? — Napoleon ! in dis- 
guise, — 
So some said, kidnapped from his ocean 

coop, 
Brought to this island in a coasting sloop, — 
Meanwhile a sham Napoleon in his place 
Played Nap. and saved Sir Hudson from 

disgrace. 
Such was one story ; others used to say, 
" No, — not Napoleon, — it was Marshal 

Ney." 
" Shot ? " Yes, no doubt, but not with balls 

of lead, 
But balls of pith that never shoot folks 

dead. 
He wandered round, lived South for many 

a year, 
At last came North and fixed his dwelling 

here. 
Choose which you will of all the tales that 

pile 
Their mingling fables on the tree-crowned 

isle. 
Who wrote this modest version I suppose 
That truthful Teacup, our Dictator, knows ; 
Made up of various legends, it would seem, 
The sailor's yarn, the crazy poet's dream. 



THE EXILE'S SECRET 



3 11 



Such tales as this, by simple souls received, 
At first are stared at aud at last believed ; 
From threads like this the grave historians 

try 
To weave their webs, and never know they 

lie. 
Hear, then, the fables that have gathered 

round 
The lonely home an exiled stranger found. 



THE EXILE'S SECRET 

[Originally entitled The Island Buin.] 

Ye that have faced the billows and the spray 
Of good St. Botolph's island-studded bay, 
As from the gliding bark your eye has 

scanned 
The beaconed rocks, the wave-girt hills of 

sand, 
Have ye not marked one elm-o'ershadowed 

isle, 
Round as the dimple chased in beauty's 

smile, — 
A stain of verdure on an azure field, 
Set like a jewel in a battered shield ? 
Fixed in the narrow gorge of Ocean's path, 
Peaceful it meets him in his hour of wrath; 
When the mailed Titan, scourged by hissing 

gales, 
Writhes in his glistening coat of clashing 

scales, 
The storm-beat island spreads its tranquil 

green, 
Calm as an emerald on an angry queen. 
So fair when distant should be fairer 

near; 
A boat shall waft us from the outstretched 

pier. 
The breeze blows fresh; we reach the 

island's edge, 
Our shallop rustling through the yielding 

sedge. 
Xo welcome greets us on the desert isle; 
Those elms, far-shadowing, hide no stately 

pile: 
Yet these green ridges mark an ancient 

road ; 
And lo ! the traces of a fair abode; 
The long gray line that marks a garden- 
wall, 
And heaps of fallen beams, — fire-branded 

all. 



Who sees unmoved, a ruin at his feet, 
The lowliest home where human hearts 

have beat ? 
Its hearthstone, shaded with the bistre stain 
A century's showery torrents wash in vain; 
Its starving orchard, where the thistle blows 
And mossy trunks still mark the broken 

rows ; 
Its chimney-loving poplar, oftenest seen 
Next an old roof, or where a roof has been ; 
Its knot-grass, plantain, — all the social 

weeds, 
Man's mute companions, following where 

he leads; 
Its dwarfed, pale flowers, that show their 

straggling heads, 
Sown by the wind from grass-choked 

garden-beds ; 
Its woodbine, creeping where it used to 

climb; 
Its roses, breathing of the olden time ; 
All the poor shows the curious idler sees, 
As life's thin shadows waste by slow de- 
grees, 
Till naught remains, the saddening tale to 

tell, 
Save home's last wrecks, — the cellar and 

the well ? 

And whose the home that strews in 

black decay 
The one green-glowing island of the bay ? 
Some dark-browed pirate's, jealous of the 

fate 
That seized the strangled wretch of " Nix's 

Mate " ? 
Some forger's, skulking in a borrowed 

name, 
Whom Tyburn's dangling halter yet may 

claim ? 
Some wan-eyed exile's, wealth and sorrow's 

heir, 
Who sought a lone retreat for tears and 

prayer ? 
Some brooding poet's, sure of deathless 

fame, 
Had not his epic perished in the flame ? 
Or some gray wooer's, whom a girlish 

frown 
Chased from his solid friends and sober 

town ? 
Or some plain tradesman's, fond of shade 

and ease, 
Who sought them both beneath these quiet 

trees ? 



312 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



Why question mutes no question can un- 
lock, 

Dumb as the legend on the Dighton rock ? 

One thing at least these ruined heaps de- 
clare, — 

They were a shelter once; a man lived 
there. 

But where the charred and crumbling 

records fail, 
Some breathing lips may piece the half- 

told tale ; 
No man may live with neighbors such as 

these, 
Though girt with walls of rock and angry 

seas, 
And shield his home, his children, or his 

wife, 
His ways, his means, his vote, his creed, 

his life, 
From the dread sovereignty of Ears and 

Eyes 
And the small member that beneath them 

lies. 
They told strange things of that myste- 
rious man; 
Believe who will, deny them such as can; 
Why should we fret if every passing sail 
Had its old seaman talking on the rail ? 
The deep-sunk schooner stuffed with 

Eastern lime, 
Slow wedging on, as if the waves were 

slime ; 
The knife-edged clipper with her ruffled 

spars, 
The pawing steamer with her mane of 

stars, 
The bull-browed galliot butting through 

the stream, 
The wide-sailed yacht that slipped along 

her beam, 
The deck-piled sloops, the pinched chebacco- 

boats, 
The frigate, black with thunder-freighted 

throats, 
All had their talk about the lonely man; 
And thus, in varying phrase, the story ran. 
His name had cost him little care to 

seek, 
Plain, honest, brief, a decent name to 

speak, 
Common, not vulgar, just the kind that 

slips 
With least suggestion from a stranger's 

lips. 



His birthplace England, as his speech 
might show, 

Or his hale cheek, that wore the red- 
streak's glow; 

His mouth sharp-moulded; in its mirth or 
scorn 

There came a flash as from the milky corn, 

When from the ear you rip the rustling 
sheath, 

And the white ridges show their even teeth. 

His stature moderate, but his strength con- 
fessed, 

In spite of broadcloth, by his ample breast; 

Full-armed, thick-handed; one that had 
been strong, 

And might be dangerous still, if things 
went wrong. 

He lived at ease beneath his elm-trees' 
shade, 

Did naught for gain, yet all his debts were 
paid; 

Rich, so 't was thought, but careful of his 
store ; 

Had all he needed, claimed to have no more. 

But some that lingered round the isle at 

night 
Spoke of strange stealthy doings in their 

sight; 
Of creeping lonely visits that he made 
To nooks and corners, with a torch and 

spade. 
Some said they saw the hollow of a cave; 
One, given to fables, swore it was a grave; 
Whereat some shuddered, others boldly 

cried, 
Those prowling boatmen lied, and knew 

they lied. 
They said his house was framed with 

curious cares, 
Lest some old friend might enter unawares ; 
That on the platform at his chamber's door 
Hinged a loose square that opened through 

the floor; 
Touch the black silken tassel next the bell, 
Down, with a crash, the flapping trap-door 

fell; 
Three stories deep the falling wretch would 

strike, 
To writhe at leisure on a boarder's pike. 
By day armed always; double-armed at 

night, 
His tools lay round him; wake him such 

as might. 
A carbine hung beside his India fan, 



THE LOVER'S SECRET 



3*3 



His hand could reach a Turkish ataghan; 

Pistols, with quaint-carved stocks aud bar- 
rels gilt, 

Crossed a long dagger with a jewelled hilt; 

A slashing cutlass stretched along the 
bed; — 

All this was what those lying boatmen said. 
Then some were full of wondrous stories 
told 

Of great oak chests and cupboards full of 
gold; 

Of the wedged ingots and the silver bars 

That cost old pirates ugly sabre-scars ; 

How his laced wallet often would disgorge 

The fresh -faced guinea of an English 
George, 

Or sweated ducat, palmed by Jews of yore, 

Or double Joe, or Portuguese moidore; 

And how his finger wore a rubied ring 

Fit for the white-necked play-girl of a king. 

But these fine legends, told with staring 
eyes, 

Met with small credence from the old and 



Why tell each idle guess, each whisper 
vain ? 

Enough: the scorched and cindered beams 
remain. 

He came, a silent pilgrim to the West, 

Some old-world mystery throbbing in his 
breast; 

Close to the thronging mart he dwelt alone; 

He lived ; he died. The rest is all un- 
known. 

Stranger, whose eyes the shadowy isle 

survey, 
As the black steamer dashes through the 

Day, 
Why ask his buried secret to divine ? 
He was thy brother; speak, and tell us 

thine ! 



Silence at first, a kind of spell-bound 
pause ; 
Then all the Teacups tinkled their applause; 
When that was hushed no sound the still- 
ness broke 
Till once again the soft-voiced lady spoke: 

" The Lover's Secret, — surely that must 
need 
The youngest voice our table holds to read. 



Which of our two ' Annexes ' shall we 

choose ? 
Either were charming, neither will refuse; 
But choose we must, — what better can we 

do 
Than take the younger of the youthful 

two ? " 
True to the primal instinct of her sex, 
" Why, that means me" half whispered 

each Annex. 
" What if it does ? " the voiceless question 

came, 
That set those pale New England cheeks 

aflame ; 
" Our old-world scholar may have ways to 

teach 
Of Oxford English, Britain's purest 

speech, — 
She shall be youngest, — youngest for to- 
day, — 
Our dates we '11 fix hereafter as we may; 
All rights reserved, — the words we know so 

well, 
That guard the claims of books which never 

sell." 
The British maiden bowed a pleased as- 
sent, 
Her two long ringlets swinging as she bent ; 
The glistening eyes her eager soul looked 

through 
Betrayed her lineage in their Saxon blue. 
Backward she flung each too obtrusive curl 
And thus began, — the rose-lipped English 

girl. 

THE LOVER'S SECRET 

[When first published this poem was entitled 

The Mysterious Illness.] 

What ailed young Lucius ? Art had 
vainly tried 

To guess his ill, and found herself defied. 

The Augur plied his legendary skill ; 

Useless; the fair young Roman languished 
still. 

His chariot took him every cloudless day 

Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way; 

They rubbed his wasted limbs with sul- 
phurous oil, 

Oozed from the far-off Orient's heated soil; 

They led him tottering down the steamy 
path 

Where bubbling fountains filled the ther- 
mal bath; 



314 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



Borne in his litter to Egeria's cave, 

They washed him, shivering, in her icy 

wave. 
They sought all curious herbs and costly 

stones, 
They scraped the moss that grew on dead 

men's bones, 
They tried all cures the votive tablets 

taught, 
Scoured every place whence healing drugs 

were brought, 
O'er Thracian hills his breathless couriers 

ran, 
His slaves waylaid the Syrian caravan. 

At last a servant heard a stranger speak 
A new chirurgeon's name; a clever Greek, 
Skilled in his art; from Pergamus he came 
To Rome but lately; Galen was the name. 
The Greek was called : a man with piercing 

eyes, 
Who must be cunning, and who might be 

wise. 
He spoke but little, — if they pleased, he 

said, 
He 'd wait awhile beside the sufferer's bed. 
So by his side he sat, serene and calm, 
His very accents soft as healing balm; 
Not curious seemed, but every movement 

spied, 
His sharp eyes searching where they seemed 

to glide; 
Asked a few questions, — what he felt, and 

where ? 
" A pain just here," " A constant beating 

there." 
Who ordered bathing for his aches and 

ails ? 
" Charmis, the water-doctor from Mar- 
seilles." 
What was the last prescription in his case ? 
" A draught of wine with powdered chryso- 

prase." 
Had he no secret grief he nursed alone ? 
A pause ; a little tremor ; answer, — 

" None." 
Thoughtful, a moment, sat the cunning 

leech, 
And muttered " Eros ! " in his native 

speech. 
In the broad atrium various friends 

await 
The last new utterance from the lips of 

fate; 
Men, matrons, maids, they talk the ques- 
tion o'er, 



And, restless, pace the tessellated floor. 

Not unobserved the youth so long had 
pined 

By gentle-hearted dames and damsels 
kind ; 

One with the rest, a rich Patrician's pride, 

The lady Hermia, called " the golden- 
eyed;" 

The same the old Proconsul fain must woo, 

Whom, one dark night, a masked sicarius 
slew; 

The same black Crassus over roughly 
pressed 

To hear his suit, — the Tiber knows the 
rest. 

(Crassus was missed next morning by his 
set; 

Next week the fishers found him in their 
net.) 

She with the others paced the ample hall, 

Fairest, alas ! and saddest of them all. 
At length the Greek declared, with puz- 
zled face, 

Some strange enchantment mingled in the 
case, 

And naught would serve to act as counter- 
charm 

Save a warm bracelet from a maiden's arm. 

Not every maiden's, — many might be 
tried ; 

Which not in vain, experience must de- 
cide. 

Were there no damsels willing to attend 

And do such service for a suffering friend ? 
The message passed among the waiting 
crowd, 

First in a whisper, then proclaimed aloud. 

Some wore no jewels ; some were disin- 
clined, 

For reasons better guessed at than defined; 

Though all were saints, — at least pro- 
fessed to be, — 

The list all counted, there were named but 
three. 
The leech, still seated by the patient's 
side, 

Held his thin wrist, and watched him, 
eagle-eyed. 
Aurelia first, a fair-haired Tuscan girl, 

Slipped off her golden asp, with eyes of 
pearl. 

His solemn head the grave physician 
shook; 

The waxen features thanked her with a 
look. 



THE STATESMAN'S SECRET 



3i5 



Olympia next, a creature half divine, 

Sprung from the blood of old Evander's 
line, 

Held her white arm, that wore a twisted 
chain 

Clasped with an opal-sheeny cymophane. 

In vain, O daughter ! said the baffled 
Greek. 

The patient sighed the thanks he could not 
speak. 
Last, Hermia entered; look, that sudden 
start ! 

The pallium heaves above his leaping 
heart; 

The beating pulse, the cheek's rekindled 
flame, 

Those quivering lips, the secret all pro- 
claim. 

The deep disease long throbbing in the 
breast, 

The dread enchantment, all at once con- 
fessed ! 

The case was plain ; the treatment was be- 
gun; 

And Love soon cured the mischief he had 
done. 
Young Love, too oft thy treacherous 
bandage slips 

Down from the eyes it blinded to the lips ! 

Ask not the Gods, O youth, for clearer 
sight, 

But the bold heart to plead thy cause 
aright. 

And thou, fair maiden, when thy lovers 
sigh, 

Suspect thy flattering ear, but trust thine 
eye; 

And learn this secret from the tale of old: 

No love so true as love that dies untold. 



" Bravo, Annex ! " they shouted, every 

one, — 
Not Mrs. Kemble's self had better done." 
Quite so," she stammered in her awk- 
ward way, — 
Not just the thing, but something she 
must say. 

The teaspoon chorus tinkled to its close 
When from his chair the Man of Law 

arose, 
Called by her voice whose mandate all 

obeyed, 



And took the open volume she displayed. 
Tall, stately, strong, his form begins to own 
Some slight exuberance in its central 

zone, — 
That comely fulness of the growing girth 
Which fifty summers lend the sons of 

earth. 
A smooth, round disk about whose margin 

stray, 
Above the temples, glistening threads of 

gray; 
Strong, deep-cut grooves by toilsome de- 
cades wrought 
On brow and mouth, the battle-fields of 

thought; 
A voice that lingers in the listener's ear, 
Grave, calm, far-reaching, every accent 

clear, — 
(Those tones resistless many a foreman 

knew 
That shaped their verdict ere the twelve 

withdrew;) 

tesman's 

and jaw, 
Such the proud semblance of the Man of 

Law. 
His eye just lighted on the printed leaf, 
Held as a practised pleader holds his brief. 
One whispered softly from behind his cup, 
" He does not read, — his book is wrong 

side up ! 
He knows the story that it holds by 

heart, — 
So like his own ! How well he '11 act his 

part ! " 
Then all were silent; not a rustling fan 
Stirred the deep stillness as the voice 

began. 



THE STATESMAN'S SECRET 
[Formerly The Disappointed Statesman.] 

Who of all statesmen is his country's 

pride, 
Her councils' prompter and her leaders' 

guide ? 
He speaks; the nation holds its breath to 

hear; 
He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere. 
Born where the primal fount of Nature 

springs 
By the rude cradles of her throneless 

kings, 



316 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



In his proud eye her royal signet flames, 
By his own lips her Monarch she proclaims. 
Why name his countless triumphs, whom 

to meet 
Is to be famous, envied in defeat ? 
The keen debaters, trained to brawls and 

strife, 
Who fire one shot, and finish with the 

knife, 
Tried him but once, and, cowering in their 

shame, 
Ground their hacked blades to strike at 

meaner game. 
The lordly chief, his party's central stay, 
Whose lightest word a hundred votes obey, 
Found a new listener seated at his side, 
Looked in his eye, and felt himself defied, 
Flung his rash gauntlet on the startled floor, 
Met the all - conquering, fought, — and 

ruled no more. 
See where he moves, what eager crowds 

attend ! 
What shouts of thronging multitudes as- 
cend ! 
If this is life, — to mark with every hour 
The purple deepening in his robes of 

power, 
To see the painted fruits of honor fall 
Thick at his feet, and choose among them 

all, 
To hear the sounds that shape his spread- 
ing name 
Peal through the myriad organ-stops of 

fame, 
Stamp the lone isle that spots the seaman's 

chart, 
And crown the pillared glory of the mart, 
To count as peers the few supremely wise 
Who mark their planet in the angels' 

eyes,— 
If this is life — 

What savage man is he 
Who strides alone beside the sounding sea ? 
Alone he wanders by the murmuring shore, 
His thoughts as restless as the waves that 

roar; 
Looks on the sullen sky as stormy-browed 
As on the waves yon tempest-brooding 

cloud, 
Heaves from his aching breast a wailing 

sigh, 
Sad as the gust that sweeps the clouded sky. 
Ask him his griefs; what midnight demons 

plough 
The lines of torture on his lofty brow; 



Unlock those marble lips, and bid them 



The mystery freezing in his bloodless 

cheek. 
His secret ? Hid beneath a flimsy word; 
One foolish whisper that ambition heard; 
And thus it spake: "Behold yon gilded 

chair, 
The world's one vacant throne, — thy place 

is there ! " 
Ah, fatal dream ! What warning spec- 
tres meet 
In ghastly circle round its shadowy seat ! 
Yet still the Tempter murmurs in his ear 
The maddening taunt he cannot choose but 

hear: 
" Meanest of slaves, by gods and men ac- 
curst, 
He who is second when he might be first ! 
Climb with bold front the ladder's topmost 

round, 
Or chain thy creeping footsteps to the 

ground ! " 
Illustrious Dupe ! Have those majestic 

eyes 
Lost their proud fire for such a vulgar 

prize ? 
Art thou the last of all mankind to know 
That party-fights are won by aiming low ? 
Thou, stamped by Nature with her royal 

sign, 
That party-hirelings hate a look like thine ? 
Shake from thy sense the wild delusive 

dream ! 
Without the purple, art thou not supreme ? 
And soothed by love unbought, thy heart 

shall own 
A nation's homage nobler than its throne ! 



Loud rang the plaudits; with them rose the 

thought, 
" Would he had learned the lesson he has 

taught ! " 
Used to the tributes of the noisy crowd, 
The stately speaker calmly smiled and 

bowed; 
The fire within a flushing cheek betrayed, 
And eyes that burned beneath their pent- 
house shade. 

"The clock strikes ten, the hours are 
flying fast, — 
Now, Number Five, we've kept you till 
the last ! " 



THE MOTHER'S SECRET 



3i7 



What music charms like those caressing 
tones 

Whose magic influence every listener 
owns, — 

Where all the woman finds herself ex- 
pressed, 

And Heaven's diviuest effluence breathes 
confessed ? 

Such was the breath that wooed our rav- 
ished ears, 

Sweet as the voice a dreaming vestal hears; 

Soft as the murmur of a brooding dove, 

It told the mystery of a mother's love. 



THE MOTHER'S SECRET 
[Originally A Mother's Secret.] 

How sweet the sacred legend — if un- 

blamed 
In my slight verse such holy things are 

named — 
Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, 
Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy ! 
Ave, Maria ! Pardon, if I wrong 
Those heavenly words that shame my 

earthly song ! 
The choral host had closed the Angel's 

strain 
Sung to the listening watch on Bethlehem's 

plain, 
And now the shepherds, hastening on their 

way, 
Sought the still hamlet where the Infant 

, la ^ 

They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth 

toiled o'er, — 
They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor 
Where Moab's daughter, homeless and for- 
lorn, 
Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of 

corn; 
And some remembered how the holy scribe, 
Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, 
Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son 
To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. 
So fared they on to seek the promised sign, 
That marked the anointed heir of David's 
line. 
At last, by forms of earthly semblance 
led, 
They found the crowded inn, the oxen's 

shed. 
Xo pomp was there, no glory shone around 



On the coarse straw that strewed the reek- 
ing ground ; 

One dim retreat a flickering torch be- 
trayed, — 

In that poor cell the Lord of Life was 
laid ! 
The wondering shepherds told their 
breathless tale 

Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping 
vale ; 

Told how the skies with sudden glory 
flamed, 

Told how the shining multitude proclaimed, 

" Joy, joy to earth ! Behold the hallowed 
morn ! 

In David's city Christ the Lord is born ! 

' Glory to God ! ' let angels shout on high, 

' Good-will to men ! ' the listening earth re- 

Ply!" 

They spoke with hurried words and ac- 
cents wild ; 

Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. 

Xo trembling word the mother's joy re- 
vealed, — 

One sigh of rapture, and her lips were 
sealed; 

Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, 

But kept their words to ponder in her 
heart. 

Twelve years had passed; the boy was 
fair and tall, 

Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. 

The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to 
fill 

Their balanced urns beside the mountain 
rill, 

The gathered matrons, as they sat and 
spun, 

Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. 

Xo voice had reached the Galilean vale 

Of star-led kings, or awe-struck shepherd's 
tale; 

In the meek, studious child they only saw 

The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. 
So grew the boy, and now the feast was 
near 

When at the Holy Place the tribes appear. 

Scarce had the home-bred child of Naza- 
reth seen 

Beyond the hills that girt the village green ; 

Save when at midnight, o'er the starlit 
sands, 

Snatched from the steel of Herod's mur- 
dering bands, 



3i» 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



A babe, close folded to his mother's breast, 
Through Edom's wilds he sought the shel- 
tering West. 
Then Joseph spake : " Thy boy hath 

largely grown; 
Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be 

shown ; 
Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest; 
Goes he not with us to the holy feast ? " 

And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white; 
Till eve she spun; she spun till morning 

light. 
The thread was twined; its parting meshes 

through 
From hand to hand her restless shuttle 

flew, 
Till the full web was wound upon the 

beam ; 
Love's curious toil, — a vest without a 

seam ! 
They reach the Holy Place, fulfil the days 
To solemn feasting given, and grateful 

praise. 
At last they turn, and far Moriah's height 
Melts in the southern sky and fades from 

sight. 
All day the dusky caravan has flowed 
In devious trails along the winding road; 
(For many a step their homeward path 

attends, 
And all the sons of Abraham are as 

friends.) 
Evening has come, — the hour of rest and 

j°y> — 

Hush ! Hush ! That whisper, — " Where 
is Mary's boy?" 
Oh, weary hour ! Oh, aching days that 



Filled with strange fears each wilder than 

the last, — 
The soldier's lance, the fierce centurion's 

sword, 
The crushing wheels that whirl some Ro- 
man lord, 
The midnight crypt that sucks the captive's 

breath, 
The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of 

death ! 
Thrice on his cheek had rained the 

morning light; 
Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of 

night, 
Crouched by a sheltering column's shining 

plinth, 
Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. 



At last, in desperate mood, they sought 
once more 

The Temple's porches, searched in vain 
before ; 

They found him seated with the ancient 
men, — 

The grim old rufflers of the tongue and 
pen,— 

Their bald heads glistening as they clus- 
tered near, 

Their gray beards slanting as they turned 
to hear, 

Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise 

That lips so fresh should utter words so 
wise. 
And Mary said, — as one who, tried too 
long, 

Tells all her grief and half her sense of 
wrong, — 

" What is this thoughtless thing which 
thou hast done ? 

Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, my 
son ! " 
Few words he spake, and scarce of filial 
tone, 

Strange words, their sense a mystery yet 
unknown; 

Then turned with them and left the holy 
hill, 

To all their mild commands obedient still. 
The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, 

And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again; 

The maids retold it at the fountain's side, 

The youthful shepherds doubted or de- 
nied ; 

It passed around among the listening 
friends, 

With all that fancy adds and fiction lends, 

Till newer marvels dimmed the young re- 
nown 

Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis 
down. 
But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, 

Kept in her heart the sayings she had 
heard, 

Till the dread morning rent the Temple's 
veil, 

And shuddering earth confirmed the won- 
drous tale. 

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of 

friendship fall: 
A mother's secret hope outlives them all. 



THE SECRET OF THE STARS 



3*9 



Hushed was the voice, but still its accents 
thrilled 

The throbbing hearts its lingering sweet- 
ness filled. 

The simple story which a tear repays 

Asks not to share the noisy breath of 
praise. 

A trance-like stillness, — scarce a whisper 
heard, 

No tinkling teaspoon in its saucer stirred ; 

A deep-drawn sigh that would not be sup- 
pressed, 

A sob, a lifted kerchief told the rest. 

" Come now, Dictator," so the lady spoke, 
" You too must fit your shoulder to the 

yoke ; 
You '11 find there 's something, doubtless, 

if you look, 
To serve your purpose, — so, now take the 

book." 
" Ah, my dear lady, you must know full 

well, 
1 Story, God bless you, I have none to tell.' 
To those five stories which these pages hold 
You all have listened, — every one is told. 
There 's nothing left to make you smile or 

weep, — 
A few grave thoughts may work you off to 

sleep." 



THE SECRET OF THE STARS 

Is man's the only throbbing heart that 

hides 
The silent spring that feeds its whispering 

tides ? 
Speak from thy caverns, mystery-breeding 

Earth, 
Tell the half-hinted story of thy birth, 
And calm the noisy champions who have 

thrown 
The book of types against the book of 

stone ! 

Have ye not secrets, ye refulgent spheres, 
Xo sleepless listener of the starlight hears ? 
In vain the sweeping equatorial pries 
Through every world-sown corner of the 

skies, 
To the far orb that so remotely strays 
Our midnight darkness is its noonday 

blaze; 
In vain the climbing soul of creeping man 



Metes out the heavenly concave with a 

span, 
Tracks into space the long-lost meteor's 

trail, 
And weighs an unseen planet in the scale ; 
Still o'er their doubts the wan-eyed watch- 
ers sigh, 
And Science lifts her still unanswered cry: 
" Are all these worlds, that speed their 

circling flight, 
Dumb, vacant, soulless, — baubles of the 

night ? 
Warmed with God's smile and wafted by 

his breath, 
To weave in ceaseless round the dance of 

Death ? 
Or rolls a sphere in each expanding zone, 
Crowned with a life as varied as our own ? " 

Maker of earth and stars ! If thou hast 

taught 
By what thy voice hath spoke, thy hand 

hath wrought, 
By all that Science proves, or guesses true, 
More than thy poet dreamed, thy prophet 

knew, — 
The heavens still bow in darkness at thy 

feet, 
And shadows veil thy cloud-pavilioned seat ! 
Not for ourselves we ask thee to reveal 
One awful word beneath the future's 

seal; 
What thou shalt tell us, grant us strength 

to bear; 
What thou withholdest is thy single care. 
Not for ourselves; the present clings too 

fast, 
Moored to the mighty anchors of the past; 
But when, with angry snap, some cable 

parts, 
The sound re-echoing in our startled 

hearts, — 
When, through the wall that clasps the 

harbor round, 
And shuts the raving ocean from its bound, 
Shattered and rent by sacrilegious hands, 
The first mad billow leaps upon the sands, — 
Then to the Future's awful page we turn, 
And what we question hardly dare to learn. 
Still let us hope ! for while we seem to 

tread 
The time-worn pathway of the nations dead, 
Though Sparta laughs at all our warlike 

deeds, 
And buried Athens claims our stolen creeds, 



320 



READINGS OVER THE TEACUPS 



Though Rome, a spectre on her broken 

throne, 
Beholds our eagle and recalls her own, 
Though England fling her pennons on the 

breeze 
And reign before us Mistress of the seas, — 
While calm-eyed History tracks us circling 

round 
Fate's iron pillar where they all were 

bound, 
Still in our path a larger curve she finds, 
The spiral widening as the chain unwinds ! 
Still sees new beacons crowned with 

brighter flame 
Than the old watch-fires, like, but not the 

same ! 
No shameless haste shall spot with bandit- 
crime 
Our destined empire snatched before its 

time. 
Wait, — wait, undoubting, for the winds 

have caught 
From our bold speech the heritage of 

thought ; 
No marble form that sculptured truth can 

wear 
Vies with the image shaped in viewless 

air; 
And thought unfettered grows through 

speech to deeds, 
As the broad forest marches in its seeds. 
What though we perish ere the day is won ? 
Enough to see its glorious work begun ! 
The thistle falls before a trampling clown, 
But who can chain the flying thistle-down ? 
Wait while the fiery seeds of freedom fly, 
The prairie blazes when the grass is dry ! 
What arms might ravish, leave to peace- 
ful arts, 
Wisdom and love shall win the roughest 

hearts; 
So shall the angel who has closed for man 
The blissful garden since his woes began 



Swing wide the golden portals of the West, 
And Eden's secret stand at length con- 
fessed ! 



The reader paused; in truth he thought it 

time, — 
Some threatening signs accused the drowsy 

rhyme. 
The Mistress nodded, the Professor dozed, 
The two Annexes sat with eyelids closed, — 
Not sleeping, — no ! But when one shuts 

one's eyes, 
That one hears better no one, sure, denies. 
The Doctor whispered in Delilah's ear, 
Or seemed to whisper, for their heads drew 

near. 
Not all the owner's efforts could restrain 
The wild vagaries of the squinting brain, — 
Last of the listeners Number Five alone 
The patient reader still could call his own. 

" Teacups, arouse ! " 'T was thus the spell 

I broke; 
The drowsy started and the slumberers 

woke. 
" The sleep I promised you have now en- 
joyed, 
Due to your hour of labor well employed. 
Swiftly the busy moments have been 

passed; 
This, our first ' Teacups,' must not be our 

last. 
Here, on this spot, now consecrated ground, 
The Order of ' The Teacups ' let us found ! 
By winter's fireside and in summer's bower 
Still shall it claim its ever-welcome hour, 
In distant regions where our feet may roam 
The magic teapot find or make a home; 
Long may its floods their bright infusion 

pour, 
Till time and teacups both shall be no 

more ! " 



APPENDIX 



I. VERSES FROM THE OLDEST 
PORTFOLIO 

FROM THE " COLLEGIAN," 1S3O, ILLUS- 
TRATED ANNUALS, ETC. 

Nescit vox missa reverti. — Horat. Ars Poetica. 
Ab iis quas non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet 
pedem referre. — Quintiliax, L. VI. C. 4. 

These verses have always been printed in 
niy collected poems, and as the best of them 
may bear a single reading 1 , I allow them to 
appear, but in a less conspicuous position than 
the other productions. A chick, before his 
shell is off his back, is hardly a fair subject 
for severe criticism. If one has written any- 
thing worth preserving, his first efforts may be 
objects of interest and curiosity. Other young 
authors may take encouragement from seeing 
how tame, how feeble, how commonplace were 
the rudimentary attempts of the half-fledged 
poet. If the boy or youth had anything in 
him. there will probably be some sign of it in 
the midst of his imitative mediocrities and am- 
bitious failures. 

These " first verses " of mine, written before 
I was sixteen, have little beyond a common 
academy boy's ordinary performance. Yet a 
kindly critic said there was one line which 
showed a poetical quality : — 

" The boiling ocean trembled into calm." 
One of these poems — the reader may guess 
which — won fair words from Thackeray. The 
Spectre Pig was a wicked suggestion which 
came into my head after reading Dana's Buc- 
caneer. Xobody seemed to find it out, and I 
never mentioned it to the venerable poet, who 
might not have been pleased with the parody. 

This is enough to say of these unvalued 
copies of verses. 



FIRST VERSES 

PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASS., 1S24 OR 
1825 

Tra.7islatioii from The sEueid, Book I. 

The god looked out upon the troubled deep 
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep ; 
The flame of anger kindles in his eye 



As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky ; 
He lifts his head above their awful height 
And to the distant fleet directs his sight, 
Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest, 
Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed, 
And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire 
Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that 

fire. 
On rapid pinions as they whistled by 
He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh : 
Is this your glory in a noble line 
To leave j r our confines and to ravage mine ? 
Whom I — but let these troubled waves sub- 
side — 
Another tempest and I '11 quell your pride ! 
Go — bear our message to your master's ear, 
That wide as ocean I am despot here ; 
Let him sit monarch in his barren caves, 
I wield the trident and control the waves ! 

He said, and as the gathered vapors break 
The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake ; 
To lift their ships the graceful nymphs essayed 
And the strong trident lent its powerful aid ; 
The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the 

main, 
And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain. 
As when sedition fires the public mind, 
And maddening fury leads the rabble blind, 
The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm, 
Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm, 
Then, if some reverend sage appear in sight, 
They stand — they gaze, and check their head- 
long flight, — 
He turns the current of each wandering breast 
And hushes every passion into rest, — 
Thus by the power of his imperial arm 
The boiling ocean trembled into calm ; 
With flowing reins the father sped his way 
And smiled serene upon rekindled day. 



THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS 

Written after a general pruning of the trees 
around Harvard College. A little poem, on a 
similar occasion, may be found in the works of 
Swift, from which, perhaps, the idea was bor- 
rowed ; although I was as much surprised as 
amused to meet with it some time after writing 
the following lines. 

It was not many centuries since, 

When, gathered on the moonlit green, 

Beneath the Tree of Liberty, 
A ring of weeping sprites was seen. 



321 



3 22 



APPENDIX 



The freshman's lamp had long been dim, 


And when he strives to calm his pain, 


The voice of busy day was mute, 


May colic mingle with his tea. 


And tortured Melody had ceased 




Her sufferings on the evening flute. 


" May nightshade cluster round his path, 




And thistles shoot, and brambles cling ; 


They met not as they once had met, 


May blistering ivy scorch his veins, 


To laugh o'er many a jocund tale : 


And dogwood burn, and nettles sting. 


But every pulse was beating low, 




And every cheek was cold and pale. 


" On him may never shadow fall, 




When fever racks his throbbing brow, 


There rose a fair but faded one, 


And his last shilling buy a rope 


Who oft had cheered them with her song ; 


To hang him on my highest bough ! " 


She waved a mutilated arm, 




And silence held the listening throng. 


She spoke ; — the morning's herald beam 




Sprang from the bosom of the sea, 


" Sweet friends,'' the gentle nymph began, 


And every mangled sprite returned 


' ' From opening bud to withering leaf, 


In sadness to her wounded tree. 


One common lot has bound us all, 




In every change of joy and grief. 


THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 


" While all around has felt decay, 


There was a sound of hurrying feet, 


We rose in ever-living prime, 


A tramp on echoing stairs, 


With broader shade and fresher green, 
Beneath the crumbling step of Time. 


There was a rush along the aisles, — 


It was the hour of prayers. 


' ' When often by our feet has past 

Some biped, Nature's walking whim, 


And on, like Ocean's midnight wave, 


The current rolled along, 


Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape, 
Or lopped away one crooked limb ? 


When, suddenly, a stranger form 


Was seen amidst the throng. 


" Go on, fair Science ; soon to thee 


He was a dark and swarthy man, 


Shall Nature yield her idle boast ; 


That uninvited guest ; 


Her vulgar fingers formed a tree, 


A faded coat of bottle-green 


But thou hast trained it to a post. 


Was buttoned round his breast. 


" Go, paint the birch's silver rind, 


There was not one among them all 


And quilt the peach with softer down ; 


Could say from whence he came ; 


Up with the willow's trailing threads, 


Nor beardless boy, nor ancient man, 


Off with the sunflower's radiant crown ! 


Could tell that stranger's name. 


"Go, plant the lily on the shore, 


All silent as the sheeted dead, 


And set the rose among the waves, 


In spite of sneer and frown, 


And bid the tropic bud unbind 


Fast by a gray-haired senior's side 


Its silken zone in arctic caves ; 


He sat him boldly down. 


" Bring bellows for the panting winds, 


There was a look of horror flashed 


Hang up a lantern by the moon, 


From out the tutor's eyes ; 


And give the nightingale a fife, 


When all around him rose to pray, 


And lend the eagle a balloon ! 


The stranger did not rise ! 


" I cannot smile, — the tide of scorn^ 


A murmur broke along the crowd, 


That rolled through every bleeding vein, 


The prayer was at an end ; 


Comes kindling fiercer as it flows 


With ringing heels and measured tread, 


Back to its burning source again. 


A hundred forms descend. 


"Again in every quivering leaf 


Through sounding aisle, o'er grating stair, 


That moment's agony I feel, 


The long procession poured, 


When limbs, that spurned the northern blast, 


Till all were gathered on the seats 


Shrunk from the sacrilegious steel. 


Around the Commons board. 


' ' A curse upon the wretch who dared 


That fearful stranger ! down he sat, 


To crop us with his felon saw ! 


Unasked, yet undismayed ; 


May every fruit his lip shall taste 


And on his lip a rising smile 


Lie like a bullet in his maw. 


Of scorn or pleasure played. 



In every julep that he drinks, 

May gout, and bile, and headache be; 



He took his hat and hung it up, 
With slow but earnest air ; 



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323 



He stripped his coat from off his back, 
And placed it on a chair. 

Then from his nearest neighbor's side 

A knife and plate he drew ; 
And. reaching out his hand again, 

He took his teacup too. 

How fled the sugar from the bowl ! 

How sunk the azure cream ! 
They vanished like the shapes that float 

Upon a summer's dream. 

A long, long draught, — an outstretched hand, 

And crackers, toast, and tea, 
They faded from the stranger's touch, 

Like dew upon the sea. 

Then clouds were dark on many a brow, 

Fear sat upon their souls, 
And. in a bitter agony. 

They clasped then- buttered rolls. 

A whisper trembled through the crowd, — 

Who could the stranger be '? 
And some were silent, for they thought 

A cannibal was he. 

What if the creature should arise, — 

For he was stout and tall, — 
And swallow down a sophomore, 

Coat, crow's-foot, cap, and all ! 

All sullenly the stranger rose ; 

They sat in mute despair ; 
He took his hat from off the peg, 

His coat from off the chair. 

Four freshmen fainted on the seat, 

Six swooned upon the floor ; 
Yet on the fearful being passed, 

And shut the chapel door. 

There is full many a starving man, 

That walks in bottle green, 
But never more that hungry one 

In Commons hall was seen. 

Yet often at the sunset hour. 

When tolls the evening bell, 
The freshman lingers on the steps. 

That frightful tale to tell. 



THE TOADSTOOL 

There 's a thing that grows by the fainting 
flower, 

And springs in the shade of the lady's bower ; 
The lily shrinks, and the rose turns pale, 
When they feel its breath in the summer gale, 
And the tulip curls its leaves in pride, 
And the blue-eyed violet starts aside ; 
But the lily may flaunt, and the tulip stare. 
For what does the honest toadstool care ? 



She does not glow in a painted Vest, 
And she never blooms on the maiden's breast ; 
But she comes, as the saintly sisters do, 
In a modest suit of a Quaker hue. 
And, when the stars in the evening skies 
Are weeping dew from their gentle eyes, 
The toad comes out from his hermit cell, 
The tale of his faithful love to tell. 

Oh, there is light in her lover's glance, 
That flies to her heart like a silver lance ; 
His breeches are made of spotted skin, 
His jacket is tight, and his pumps are thin ; 
In a cloudless night you may hear his song, 
As its pensive melody floats along, 
And, if you will look by the moonlight fair, 
The trembling form of the toad is there. 

And he twines his arms round her slender stem, 
In the shade of her velvet diadem ; 
But she turns away in her maiden shame, 
And will not breathe on the kindling flame ; 
He sings at her feet through the livelong night, 
And creeps to his cave at the break of light ; 
And whenever he comes to the air above, 
His throat is swelling with baffled love. 



THE SPECTRE PIG 

A BALLAD 

It was the stalwart butcher man, 
That knit his swarthy brow, _ 

And said the gentle Pig must die, 
And sealed it with a vow. 

And oh ! it was the gentle Pig 
Lay stretched upon the ground, 

And ah ! it was the cruel knife 
His little heart that found. 

They took him then, those wicked men. 

They trailed him all along : 
They put a stick between his lips, 

And through his heels a thong ; 

And round and round an oaken beam 

A hempen cord they flung, 
And, like a mighty pendulum, 

All solemnly he swung ! 

Now say thy prayers, thou sinful man, 
And think what thou hast done, 

And read thy catechism well, 
Thou bloody-minded one ; 

For if his sprite should walk by night,. 

It better were for thee, 
That thou wert mouldering in the ground, 

Or bleaching in the sea. 

It was the savage butcher then, 

That made a mock of sin, 
And swore a very wicked oath, 

He did not care a pin. 



3 2 4 



APPENDIX 



It was the butcher's youngest son, — 


And straight towards the sleeper's house 


His voice was broke with sighs, 


His fearful way he wended; 


And with his pocket-handkerchief 


And hooting owl and hovering bat 


He wiped his little eyes ; 


On midnight wing attended. 


All young and ignorant was he, 


Back flew the bolt, up rose the latch, 


But innocent and mild, 


And open swung the door, 


And, in his soft simplicity, 


And little mincing feet were heard 


Out spoke the tender child : — 


Pat, pat along the floor. 


"Oh, father, father, list to me ; 


Two hoofs upon the sanded floor, 


The Pig is deadly sick, 


And two upon the bed; 


And men have hung him by his heels, 


And they are breathing side by side, 


And fed him with a stick." 


The living and the dead ! 


It was the bloody butcher then, 


"Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man ! 


That laughed as he would die, 


What makes thy cheek so pale ? 


Yet did he soothe the sorrowing child, 


Take hold ! take hold ! thou dost not fear 


And bid him not to cry ; — 


To clasp a spectre's tail ? " 


" Oh, Nathan, Nathan, what 's a Pig, 


Untwisted every winding coil ; 


That thou shouldst weep and wail ? 


The shuddering wretch took hold, 


Come, bear thee like a butcher's child, 


All like an icicle it seemed, 


And thou shalt have his tail ! " 


So tapering and so cold. 


It was the butcher's daughter then, 


" Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man ! " — 


So slender and so fair, 


He strives to loose his grasp, 


That sobbed as if her heart would break, 


But, faster than the clinging vine, 


And tore her yellow hair ; 


Those twining spirals clasp ; 


And thus she spoke in thrilling tone, — 


And open, open swung the door, 


Fast fell the tear-drops big : — 


And, fleeter than the wind, 


' ' Ah ! woe is me ! Alas ! A.las ! 


The shadowy spectre swept before, 


The Pig! The Pig! The Pig!" 


The butcher trailed behind. 


Then did her wicked father's lips 


Fast fled the darkness of the night, 


Make merry with her woe, 


And morn rose faint and dim ; 


And call her many a naughty name, 


They called full loud, they knocked full long, 


Because she whimpered so. 


They did not waken him. 


Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones, 


Straight, straight towards that oaken beam, 


In vain your tears are shed, 


A trampled pathway ran ; 


Ye cannot wash his crimson hand, 


A ghastly shape was swinging there, — 


Ye cannot soothe the dead. 


It was the butcher man. 


The bright sun folded on his breast 




His robes of rosy flame, 
And softly over all the west 


TO A CAGED LION 


The shades of evening came. 






Poor conquered monarch ! though that haughty 


He slept, and troops of murdered Pigs 


glance m 


Were busy with his dreams ; 


Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time, 


Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks, 


And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread 


Wide yawned their mortal seams. 


Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime ; — 




Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar, 


The clock struck twelve ; the Dead hath 


Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this nar- 


heard ; 


row floor ! 


He opened both his eyes, 




And sullenly he shook his tail 


Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk 


To lash the feeding flies. 


Before the thunders of thine awful wrath ; 




The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar, 


One quiver of the hempen cord, — 


Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path ! 


One struggle and one bound, — 


The famished tiger closed his flaming eye, 


With stiffened limb and leaden eye, 


And crouched and panted as thy step went 


The Pig was on the ground ! 


by! 



VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO 



325 



Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man 
Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow's wing; 

His nerveless arras thine iron sinews bind, 
And lead in chains the desert's fallen king- ; 

Are these the beings that have dared to twine 

Their feeble threads around those limbs of 
thine ? 

So must it be ; the weaker, wiser race, < 

That wields the tempest and that rides the 
sea, 
Even in the stillness of thy solitude 

Must teach the lesson of its power to thee ; 
And thou, the terror of the trembling wild, 
Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of 
a child ! 



THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY 

The sim stepped down from his golden throne, 

And lay in the silent sea, 
And the Lily had folded her satin leaves, 

For a sleepy thing was she ; 
What is the Lily dreaming of ? 

Why crisp the waters blue ? 
See, see, she is lifting her varnished lid ! 

Her white leaves are glistening through ! 

The Rose is cooling his burning cheek 

In the lap of the breathless tide ; — 
The Lily hath sisters fresh and fair, 

That would lie by the Rose's side ; 
He would love her better than all the rest, 

And he would be fond and true ; — 
But the Lily unfolded her weary lids, 

And looked at the sky so blue. 

Remember, remember, thou silly one, 

How fast will thy summer glide, 
And wilt thou wither a virgin pale, 

Or flourish a blooming bride ? 
" Oh, the Rose is old, and thorny, and cold, 

And he lives on earth," said she ; 
" But the Star is fair and he lives in the air, 

And he shall my bridegroom be." 

But what if the stormy cloud should come, 

And ruffle the silver sea ? 
Woidd he turn his eye from the distant sky, 

To 3mile on a thiug like thee ? 
Oh no, fair Lily, he will not send 

One ray from his far-off throne ; 
The winds shall blow, and the waves shall 
flow, 

And thou wilt be left alone. 

There is not a leaf on the mountain-top, 

Xor a drop of evening dew, 
Xor a golden sand on the sparkling shore, 

Xor a pearl in the waters blue, 
That he has not cheered with his fickle smile, 

And warmed with his faithless beam, — 
And will he be true to a pallid flower. 

That floats on the quiet stream ? 



Alas for the Lily ! she would not heed, 

But turned to the skies afar, 
And bared her breast to the trembling ray 

That shot from the rising star ; 
The cloud came over the darkened sky, 

And over the waters wide : 
She looked in vain through the beating rain, 

And sank in the stormy tide. 



ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE 

"A SPANISH GIRL IN REVERIE" 

She twirled the string of golden beads, 

That round her neck was hung, — 
My grandsire's gift ; the good old man 

Loved girls when he was young ; 
And, bending lightly o'er the cord, 

And turning half away, 
With something like a youthful sigh, 

Thus spoke the maiden gray : — 

" Well, one may trail her silken robe, 

And bind her locks with pearls, 
And one may wreathe the woodland rose 

Among her floating curls ; 
And one may tread the dewy grass, 

And one the marble floor, 
Xor half-hid bosom heave the less, 

Xor broidered corset more ! 

" Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl 

Was sitting in the shade, — 
There 's something brings her to my mind 

In that young dreaming maid, — 
And in her hand she held a flower, 

A flower, whose speaking hue 
Said, in the language of the heart, 

' Believe the giver true.' 

" And, as she looked upon its leaves, 

The maiden made a vow 
To wear it when the bridal wreath 

Was woven for her brow ; 
She watched the flower, as, day by day, 

The leaflets curled and died ; 
But he who gave it never came 

To claim her for his bride. 

" Oh, many a summer's morning glow 

Has lent the rose its ray, 
And many a winter's drifting snow 

Has swept its bloom away ; 
But she has kept that faithless pledge 

To this, her winter hour, 
And keeps it still, herself alone, 

And wasted like the flower." 

Her pale lip quivered, and the light 

Gleamed in her moistening eyes ; — 
I asked her how she liked the tints 

In those Castilian skies ? 
"She thought them misty, — 't was perhaps 

Because she stood too near ; " 
She turned away, and as she turned 

I saw her wipe a tear. 



326 



APPENDIX 



A ROMAN AQUEDUCT 

The sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline 
When noon her languid hand has laid 

Hot on the green flakes of the pine, 
Beneath its narrow disk of shade ; 

As, through the flickering noontide glare, 
She gazes on the rainbow chain 

Of arches, lifting once in air 
The rivers of the Roman's plain ; — 

Say, does her wandering eye recall 
The mountain-current's icy wave, — 

Or for the dead one tear let fall, 
Whose founts are broken by their grave ? 

From stone to stone the ivy weaves 
Her braided tracery's winding veil, 

And lacing stalks and. tangled leaves 
Nod heavy in the drowsy gale. 

And lightly floats the pendent vine, 
That swings beneath her slender bow, 

Arch answering arch, — whose rounded line 
Seems mirrored in the wreath below. 

How patient Nature smiles at Fame ! 

The weeds, that strewed the victor's way, 
Feed on his dust to shroud his name, 

Green where his proudest towers decay. 

See, through that channel, empty now, 
The scanty rain its tribute pours, — 

Which cooled the lip and laved the brow 
Of conquerors from a hundred shores. 

Thus bending o'er the nation's bier, 
Whose wants the captive earth supplied, 

The dew of Memory's passing tear 
Falls on the arches of her pride ! 



FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOUR- 
NAL 

Sweet Mary, I have never breathed 
The love it were in vain to name ; 

Though round my heart a serpent wreathed, 
I smiled, or strove to smile, the same. 

Once more the pulse of Nature glows 
With faster throb and fresher fire, 

While music round her pathway flows, 
Like echoes from a hidden lyre. 

And is there none with me to share 
The glories of the earth and sky ? 

The eagle through the pathless air 
Is followed by one burning eye. 

Ah no ! the cradled flowers may wake, 
Again may flow the frozen sea, 



From every cloud a star may break, — 
There comes no second spring to me. 

Go, — ere the painted toys of youth 
Are crushed beneath the tread of years ; 

Ere visions have been chilled to truth, 
And hopes are washed away in tears. 

Go, — for I will not bid thee weep, — 
Too soon my sorrows will be thine, 

And evening's troubled air shall sweep 
The incense from the broken shrine. 

If Heaven can hear the dying tone 
Of chords that soon will cease to thrill, 

The prayer that Heaven has heard alone 
May bless thee when those chords are still. 



LA GRISETTE 

Ah, Clemence ! when I saw thee last 

Trip down the Rue de Seine, 
And turning, when thy form had past, 

I said, " We meet again," — 
I dreamed not in that idle glance 

Thy latest image came, 
And only left to memory's trance 

A shadow and a name. 

The few strange words my lips had taught 

Thy timid voice to speak, 
Their gentler signs, which often brought 

Fresh roses to thy cheek, 
The trailing of thy long loose hair 

Bent o'er my couch of pain, 
All, all returned, more sweet, more fair ; 

Oh, had we met again ! 

I walked where saint and virgin keep 

The vigil lights of Heaven, 
I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, 

And sins to be forgiven ; 
I watched where Genevieve was laid, 

I knelt by Mary's shrine, 
Beside me low, soft voices prayed ; 

Alas ! but where was thine ? 

And when the morning sun was bright, 

When wind and wave were calm, 
And flamed, in thousand-tinted light, 

The rose of Notre Dame, 
I wandered through the haunts of men, 

From Boulevard to Quai, 
Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne, 

The Pantheon's shadow lay. 

In vain, in vain ; we meet no more, 

Nor dream what fates befall ; 
And long upon the stranger's shore 

My voice on thee may call, 
When years have clothed the line in moss 

That tells thy name and days, 
And withered, on thy simple cross, 

The wreaths of Pere-la-Chaise ! 



VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO 



327 



OUR YANKEE GIRLS 


But, lady, when thy voice I greet, 




Not heavenly music seems so sweet. 


Let greener lands and bluer skies, 




If such the wide earth shows, 


I look upon the fair blue skies, 


With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, 


And naught but empty air I see ; 


Match us the star and rose ; 


But when I turn me to thine eyes, 


The winds that lift the Georgian's veil, 


It seemeth unto me 


Or wave Circassia's curls, 


Ten thousand angels spread their wings 


Waft to their shores the sultan's sail, — 


Within those little azure rings. 


Who buys our Yankee girls ? 






The lily hath the softest leaf 


The gay grisette, whose fingers touch 


That ever western breeze hath fanned, 


Love's thousand chords so w r ell; 


But thou shalt have the tender flower, 


The dark Italian, loving much, 


So I may take thy hand ; 


But more than one can tell ; 


That little hand to me doth yield 


And England's fair-haired, blue-eyed dame, 


More joy than all the broidered field. 


Who binds her brow with pearls ; — 




Ye who have seen tbem, can they shame 


lady ! there be many things 


Our own sweet Yankee girls V 


That seem right fair, below, above ; 




But sure not one among them all 


And what if court or castle vaunt 


Is half so sweet as love ; — 


Its children loftier born ? — 


Let us not pay our vows alone, 


Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt 


But join two altars both in one. 


Beside the golden corn ? 




They ask not for the dainty toil 




Of ribboned knights and earls, 


LINES BY A CLERK 


The daughters of the virgin soil, 




Our freeborn Yankee girls I 


Oh ! I did love her dearly, 




And gave her toys and rings, 


By every hill whose stately pines 


And I thought she meant sincerely, 


Wave their dark arms above 


When she took my pretty things. 


The home where some fair being shines, 


But her heart has grown as icy 


To warm the wilds with love, 


As a fountain in the fall, 


From barest rock to bleakest shore 


And her love, that was so spicy, 


Where farthest sail unfurls, 


It did not last at all. 


That stars and stripes are streaming o'er, — 




God bless our Yankee girls ! 


I gave her once a locket, 
It was filled with my own hair, 




L'INCONNUE 


And she put it in her pocket 




With very special care. 


Is thy name Mary, maiden fair ? 


But a jeweller has got it, — 


Such should, methinks, its music be ; 


He offered it to me, — 


The sweetest name that mortals bear 


And another that is not it 


Were best befitting thee ; 


Around her neck I see. 


And she to whom it once was given, 




Was half of earth and half of heaven. 


For my cooings and my billings 




I do not now complain, 


I hear thy voice, I see thy smile, 


But my dollars and ray shillings 


I look upon thy folded hair ; 


Will never come again ; 


Ah ! while we dream not they beguile, 


They were earned with toil and sorrow, 


Our hearts are in the snare ; 


But I never told her that, 


And she who chains a wild bird's wing 


And now I have to borrow, 


Must start not if her captive sing. 


And want another hat. 


So, lady, take the leaf that falls, 


Think, think, thou cruel Emma, 


To all but thee unseen, unknown : 


When ikon shalt hear my woe, 


When evening shades thy silent walls, 


And know my sad dilemma, 


Then read it all alone ; 


That thou hast made it so. 


In stillness read, in darkness seal, 


See, see my beaver rusty, 


Forget, despise, but not reveal ! 


Look, look upon this hole, 




This coat is dim and dusty; 


STANZAS 


Oh let it rend thy soul ! 


Strange ! that one lightly whispered tone 


Before the gates of fashion 


Is far. far sweeter unto me, 


I daily bent my knee, 


Than all the sounds that kiss the earth, 


But I sought the shrine of passion, 


Or breathe along the sea ; 


And found my idol, — thee. 



328 



APPENDIX 



Though never love intenser 
Had bowed a soul before it, 

Thine eye was on the censer, 
And not the hand that bore it. 



THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE 

Dearest, a look is but a ray- 
Reflected in a certain way ; 
A word, whatever tone it wear, 
Is but a trembling wave of air ; 
A touch, obedience to a clause 
In nature's pure material laws. 

The very flowers that bend and meet, 

In sweetening others, grow more sweet ; 

The clouds by day, the stars by night, 

Inweave their floating locks of light ; 

The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid, 

Is but the embrace of sun and shade. 

How few that love us have we found ! 
How wide the world that girds them round ! 
Like mountain streams we meet and part, 
Each living in the other's heart, 
Our course unknown, our hope to be 
Yet mingled in the' distant sea. 

But Ocean coils and heaves in vain, 
Bound in the subtle moonbeam's chain ; 
And love and hope do but obey 
Some cold, capricious planet's ray, 
Which lights and leads the tide it charms 
To Death's dark caves and icy arms. 

Alas ! one narrow line is drawn, 
That links our sunset with our dawn ; 
In mist and shade life's morning rose, 
And clouds are round it at its close ; 
But ah ! no twilight beam ascends 
To whisper where that evening ends. 

Oh ! in the hour when I shall feel 
Those shadows round my senses steal, 
When gentle eyes are weeping o'er 
The clay that feels their tears no more, 
Then let thy spirit with me be, 
Or some sweet angel, likest thee ! 

THE POET'S LOT 

What is a poet's love ? — 

To write a girl a sonnet, 
To get a ring, or some such thing, 

And fustianize upon it. 

What is a poet's fame ? — 
Sad hints about his reason, 

And sadder praise from garreteers, 
To be returned in season. 

Where go the poet's lines ? — 
Answer, ye evening tapers ! 

Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, 
Speak from your folded papers ! 



Child of the ploughshare, smile ; 

Boy of the counter, grieve not, 
Though muses round thy trundle-bed 

Their broidered tissue weave not. 

The poet's future holds 

No civic wreath above him ; 
Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise, 

Nor wife nor child to love him. 

Maid of the village inn, 

Who workest woe on satin, 
(The grass in black, the graves in green, 

The epitaph in Latin,) 

Trust not to them who say, 

In stanzas, they adore thee ; 
Oh rather sleep in churchyard clay, 

With urn and cherub o'er thee ! 



TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER 

Wan-visaged thing ! thy virgin leaf 
To me looks more than deadly pale, 

Unknowing what may stain thee yet, — 
A poem or a tale. 

Who can thy unborn meaning scan ? 

Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now ? 
No, — seek to trace the fate of man 

Writ on his infant brow. 

Love may light on thy snowy cheek, 
And shake his Eden-breathing plumes ; 

Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles, 
Or Angelina blooms. 

Satire may lift his bearded lance, 

Forestalling Time's slow-moving scythe, 

And, scattered on thy little field, 
Disjointed bards may writhe. 

Perchance a vision of the night, 
Some grizzled spectre, gaunt and thin, 

Or sheeted corpse, may stalk along, 
Or skeleton may grin ! 

If it should be in pensive hour 
Some sorrow-moving theme I try, 

Ah, maiden, how thy tears will fall, 
For all I doom to die ! 

But if in merry mood I touch 

Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee 
Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips 

As ripples on the sea. 

The Weekly press shall gladly stoop 
To bind thee up among its sheaves ; 

The Daily steal thy shining ore, 
To gild its leaden leaves. 

Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak, 
Till distant shores shall hear the sound ; 



VERSES FROM THE 


OLDEST PORTFOLIO 329 


Thou hast no life, yet thou canst breathe 


And often in her calmer hours, 


Fresh life ou all around. 


And in her happy dreams, 




Upon its long-deserted hook 
The absent portrait seems. 


Thou art the arena of the wise, 


The noiseless battle-ground of fame ; 




The sky where halos may be wreathed 


Thy wretched infant turns his head 


Around the humblest name. 


In melancholy wise, 




And looks to meet the placid stare 


Take, then, this treasure to thy trust, 


Of those unbending eyes. 


To win some idle reader's smile, 




Then fade and moulder in the dust, 


I never saw thee, lovely one, — 


Or swell some bonfire's pile. 


Perchance I never may ; 




It is not often that we cross 




Such people in our way ; 


TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLE- 




MAX - 


But if we meet in distant years, 




Or on some foreign shore, 


IN THE ATHEN/EUM GALLERY 


Sure I can take my Bible oath, 




I 've seen that face before. 


[The companion poem, To the Portrait of "A 




Lady,' 1 was retained by Dr. Holmes in his 




group, Earlier Poems.] 


THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN 


It may be so, — perhaps thou hast 


It was a tall young oysterman lived by the 


A warm and loving heart ; 


river-side, 


I will not blame thee for thy face, 


His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was 


Poor devil as thou art. 


on the tide ; 




The daughter of a fisherman, that was so 


That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose, 


straight and slim, 


Unsightly though it be, — 


Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to 


In spite of all the cold world's scorn, 


him. 


It may be much to thee. 






It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely 


Those eyes, — among thine elder friends 


maid, 


Perhaps they pass for blue, — 


Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the 


No matter, — if a man can see, 


shade ; 


What more have eyes to do ? 


He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as 




if to say, 


Thy mouth, — that fissure in thy face, 
By something like a chin, — 


"I'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all 


the folks away." 


May be a very useful place 




To put thy victual in. 


Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself 

said he, 
" I guess I '11 leave the skiff at home, for fear 


I know thou hast a wife at home, 


I know thou hast a child, 


that folks should see ; 


By that subdued, domestic smile 


I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his 


Upon thy features mild. 


dear, 




Leander swam the Hellespont, — and I will 


That wife sits fearless by thy side, 


swim this here." 


That cherub on thy knee ; 




They do not shudder at thy looks, 


And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed 


They do not shrink from thee. 


the shining stream, 




And he has clambered up the bank, all in the 


Above thy mantle is a hook, — 


moonlight gleam ; 


A portrait once was there ; 


Oh there were kisses sweet as dew, and words 


It was thine only ornament, — 


as soft as rain, — 


Alas ! that hook is bare. 


But they have heard her father's step, and in 




he leaps again ! 


She begged thee not to let it go, 




She begged thee all in vain ; 


Out spoke the ancient fisherman, — " Oh, what 


She wept, — and breathed a trembling prayer 


was that, my daughter ? " 


To meet it safe again. 


" 'T was nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into 




the water." 


It was a bitter sight to see 


" And what is that, pray tell me, love, that 


That picture torn away ; 


paddles off so fast ? " 


It was a solemn thought to think 


"It 's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that 's been 


What all her friends would say ! 


a-swi mming past." 



33° 



APPENDIX 



Out spoke the ancient fisherman, — " Now bring 




me my harpoon ! 


THE HOT SEASON 


I '11 get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow 




soon." 


The folks, that on the first of May 


Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow- 


Wore winter coats and hose, 


white lamb, 


Began to say, the first of June, 


Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like 


" Good Lord ! how hot it grows 1 " 


seaweed on a clam. 


At last two Fahrenheits blew up, 




And killed two children small, 


Alas for those two loving ones ! she waked not 


And one barometer shot dead 


from her s wound, 


A tutor with its ball ! 


And he was taken with the cramp, and in the 




waves was drowned ; 


Now all day long the locusts sang 


But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of 


Among the leafless trees ; 


their woe, 


Three new hotels warped inside out, 


And now they keep an oyster-shop for mer- 


The pumps could only wheeze ; 


maids down below. 


And ripe old wine, that twenty years 




Had cobwebbed o'er in vain, 




Came spouting through the rotten corks 


A NOONTIDE LYRIC 


Like Joly's best champagne ! 


The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell 


The Worcester locomotives did 


Is ringing loud and clear ; 


Their trip in half an hour ; 


Through hill and plain, through street and lane, 


The Lowell cars ran forty miles 


It echoes far and near ; 


Before they checked the power ; 


From curtained hall and whitewashed stall, 


Roll brimstone soon became a drug, 


Wherever men can hide, 


And loco-foeos fell ; 


Like bursting waves from ocean caves, 


All asked for ice, but everywhere 


They float upon the tide. 


Saltpetre was to sell. 


I smell the smell of roasted meat ! 


Plump men of mornings ordered tights, 


I hear the hissing fry ! 


But, ere the scorching noons, 


The beggars know where they can go, 
But where, oh where shall I ? 


Their candle-moulds had grown as loose 


As Cossack pantaloons ! 


At twelve o'clock men took my hand, 


The dogs ran mad, — men could not try 


At two they only stare, 


If water they would choose ; 


And eye me with a fearful look, 


A horse fell dead, — he only left 


As if I were a bear ! 


Four red-hot, rusty shoes ! 


The poet lays his laurels down, 


But soon the people could not bear 


And hastens to his greens ; 


The slightest hint of fire ; 


The happy tailor quits his goose, 


Allusions to caloric drew 


To riot on his beans ; 


A flood of savage ire ; 


The weary cobbler snaps his thread, 


The leaves on heat were all torn out 


The printer leaves his pi ; 


From every book at school, 


His very devil hath a home, 


And many blackguards kicked and caned, 


But what, oh what have I ? 


Because they said, " Keep cool ! " 


Me thinks I hear an angel voice, 


The gas-light companies were mobbed, 


That softly seems to say : 


The bakers all were shot. 


" Pale stranger, all may yet be well, 


The penny press began to talk 
Of lynching Doctor Nott ; 


Then wipe thy tears away ; 


Erect thy head, and cock thy hat, 


And all about the warehouse steps 


And follow me afar, 


Were angry men in droves, 


And thou shalt have a jolly meal, 


Crashing and splintering through the doors 


And charge it at the bar." 


To smash the patent stoves ! 


I hear the voice ! I go! I go! 


The abolition men and maids 


Prepare your meat and wine ! 


Were tanned to such a hue, 


They little heed their future need 


You scarce could tell them from their friends, 


Who pay not when they dine. 


Unless their eyes were blue ; 


Give me to-day the rosy bowl, 


And, when I left, society 


Give me one golden dream, — 


Had burst its ancient guards, 


To-morrow kick away the stool, 


And Brattle Street and Temple Place 


And dangle from the beam ! 


Were interchanging cards ! 



VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO 



331 



A PORTRAIT 

A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face, 

And slightly nonchalant, 
Which seems to claim a middle place 

Between one's love and aunt, 
Where childhood's star has left a ray 

In woman's sunniest sky, 
As morning dew and blushing day 

On fruit and blossom He. 

And 3 r et, — and yet I cannot love 

Those lovely Hues on steel ; 
They beam too much of heaven above, 

Earth's darker shades to feel ; 
Perchance some early weeds of care 

Around my heart have grown, 
And brows unfurrowed seem not fair, 

Because they mock my own. 

Alas ! when Eden's gates were sealed, 

How oft some sheltered flower 
Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field, 

Like their own bridal bower ; 
Yet, saddened by its loveliness, 

And humbled by its pride, 
Earth's fairest child they could not bless, 

It mocked them when they sighed. 



AN EVENING THOUGHT 

WRITTEN AT SEA 

If sometimes in the dark blue eye, 

Or in the deep red wine, 
Or soothed by gentlest melody, 

Still warms this heart of mine, 
Yet something colder in the blood, 

And calmer in the brain, 
Have whispered that my youth's bright flood 

Ebbs, not to flow again. 

If by Helvetia's azure lake, 

Or Arno's yellow stream, 
Each star of memory could awake, 

As in my first young dream, 
I know that when mine eye shall greet 

The hillsides bleak and bare, 
That gird my home, it will not meet 

My childhood's sunsets there. 

Oh, when love's first, sweet, stolen kiss 

Burned on my boyish brow, 
Was that young forehead worn as this ? 

Was that flushed cheek as now ? 
Were that wild pulse and throbbing heart 

Like these, which vainly strive, 
In thankless strains of soulless art, 

To dream themselves alive ? 



Alas ! the morning dew is gone, 
Gone ere the full of day ; 

Life's iron fetter still is on, 
Its wreaths all torn away ; 



Happy if still some casual hour 
Can warm the fading shrine, 

Too soon to chill beyond the power 
Of love, or song, or wine ! 



"THE WASP" AND "THE HORNET" 

The two proud sisters of the sea, 

In glory and in doom ! — 
Well may the eternal waters be 

Their broad, unsculptured tomb ! 
The wind that rings along the w r ave, 

The clear, unshadowed sun, 
Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave, 

Whose last green wreath is won ! 

No stranger-hand their banners furled, 

No victor's shout they heard ; 
Unseen, above them ocean curled, 

Safe by his own pale bird ; 
The gnashing billows heaved and fell ; 

"Wild shrieked the midnight gale ; 
Far, far beneath the morning swell 

Were pennon, spar, and sail. 

The land of Freedom ! Sea and shore 

Are guarded now, as when 
Her ebbing waves to victory bore 

Fair barks and gallant men ; 
Oh, many a ship of prouder name 

May wave her starry fold, 
Nor trail, with deeper light of fame, 

The paths they swept of old ! 



" QUI VIVE ? " 

" Qui vive ? " The sentry's musket rings, 

The channelled bayonet gleams ; 
High o'er him, like a raven's wings 
The broad tricolored banner flings 
Its shadow, rustling as it swings 

Pale in the moonlight beams ; 
Pass on ! while steel-clad sentries keep 
Their vigil o'er the monarch's sleep, 

Thy bare, unguarded breast 
Asks not the unbroken, bristling zone 
That girds yon sceptred trembler's throne : 

Pass on, and take thy rest ! 

" Qui vive ? " How oft the midnight air 

That startling cry has borne ! 
How oft the evening breeze has fanned 
The banner of this haughty land, 
O'er mountain snow and desert sand, 

Ere yet its folds were torn ! 
Through Jena's carnage flying red, 
Or tossing o'er Marengo's dead, 

Or curling on the towers 
Where Austria's eagle quivers yet, 
And suns the ruffled plumage, wet 

With battle's crimson showers ! 

" Qui vive ? " And is the sentry's cry, — 

The sleepless soldier's hand, — 
Are these — the painted folds that fly 



332 



APPENDIX 



And lift their emblems, printed high 
On morning mist and sunset sky — 

The guardians of a land ? 
No ! If the patriot's pulses sleep, 
How vain the watch that hirelings keep, 

The idle flag that waves, 
"When Conquest, with his iron heel, 
Treads down the standards and the steel 

That belt the soil of slaves ! 



A SOUVENIR 

Yes, lady ! I can ne'er forget, 
That once in other years we met ; 
Thy memory may perchance recall 
A festal eve, a rose-wreathed hall, 
Its tapers' blaze, its mirrors' glance, 
Its melting song, its ringing glance ; — 
Why, in thy dream of virgin joy, 
Shouldst thou recall a pallid boy ? 

Thine eye had other forms to seek, 

Why rest upon his bashful cheek ? 

With other tones thy heart was stirred, 

Why waste on him a gentle word ? 

We parted, lady, — all night long 

Thine ear to thrill with dance and song, — 

And I — to weep that I was born 

A thing thou scarce wouldst deign to scorn. 

And, lady ! now that years have past, 
My bark has reached the shore at last ; 
The gales that filled her ocean wing, 
Have chilled and shrunk thy hasty spring, 
Aud eye to eye, and brow to brow, 
I stand before thy presence now ; — 
Thy lip is smoothed., thy voice is sweet, 
Thy warm hand offered when we meet. 

Nay, lady ! 't is not now for me 
To droop the lid or bend the knee. 
I seek thee, — oh thou dost not shun ; 
I speak, — thou listenest like a nun ; 
I ask thy smile, — thy lip uncurls, 
Too liberal of its flashing pearls ; 
Thy tears, — thy lashes sing again, — 
My Hebe turns to Magdalen ! 

changing youth ! that evening hour 
Looked down on ours, — the bud — the flower 
Thine faded in its virgin soil, 
And mine was nursed in tears and toil ; 
Thy leaves were withering, one by one, 
While mine were opening- to the sun. 
Which now can meet the cold and storm, 
With freshest leaf and hardiest form ? 

Ay, lady ! that once haughty glance 

Still wanders through the glittering dance, 

She asks in vain from others' pride, 

The charity thine own denied ; 

And as thy fickle lips could learn 

To smile and praise, — that used to spurn, 

So the last offering on thy shrine 

Shall be this flattering lay of mine ! 



THE DYING SENECA 

He died not as the martyr dies, 

Wrapped in his living shroud of flame ; 

He fell not as the warrior falls, 
Gasping upon the field of fame ; 

A gentler passage to the grave, 

The murderer's softened fury gave. 

Rome's slaughtered sons and blazing piles 
Had tracked the purpled demon's path, 

And yet another victim lived 
To fill the fiery scroll of wrath ; 

Could not imperial vengeance spare 

His furrowed brow and silver hair ? 

The field was sown with noble blood, 
The harvest reaped in burning tears, 

When, rolling up its crimson flood, 

Broke the long-gathering tide of years ; 

His diadem w^as rent away, 

And beggars trampled on his clay. 

None wept, — none pitied ; — they who knelt 
At morning by the despot's throne, 

At evening dashed the laurelled bust, 

And spurned the wreaths themselves had 
strown ; 

The shout of triumph echoed wide, 

The self-stung reptile writhed and died ! 



THE LAST PROPHECY OF CASSANDRA 

The sun is fading in the skies, 
And evening shades are gathering fast ; 

Fair city, ere that sun shall rise, 

Thy night hath come, — thy day is past ! 

Ye know not, — but the hour is nigh ; 

Ye will not heed the warning breath ; 
No vision strikes your clouded eye, 

To break the sleep that wakes in death. 

Go, age, and let thy withered cheek 
Be wet once more with freezing tears ; 

And bid thy trembling sorrows speak, 
In accents of departed years. 

Go, child, and pour thy sinless prayer 

Before the everlasting throne ; 
And He, who sits in glory there, 

May stoop to hear thy silver tone. 

Go, warrior, in thy glittering steel, 
And bow thee at the altar's side ; 

And bid thy frowning gods reveal 
The doom their mystic counsels hide. 

Go, maiden, in thy flowing veil, 
And bare thy brow, and bend thy knee ; 

When the last hopes of mercy fail, 
Thy God may yet remember thee. 

Go, as thou didst in happier hours^ 
And lay thine incense on the shrine : 



ASTRiEA : THE BALANCE OF ILLUSIONS 



333 



And greener leaves, and fairer flowers, 
Around the sacred image twine. 

I saw them rise, — the buried dead, — 
From marble tomb and grassy mound ; 

I heard the spirits' printless tread, 
And voices not of earthly sound. 

I looked upon the quivering stream, 
And its cold wave was bright with flame ; 

And wild, as from a fearful dream, 
The wasted forms of battle came. 

Ye will not hear, — ye will not know, — 
Ye scorn the maniac's idle song ; 

Ye care not ! but the voice of woe 
Shall thunder loud, and echo long. 

Blood shall be in your marble halls, 
And spears shall glance, and fire shall glow; 

Ruin shall sit upon your walls, 
But ye shall lie in death below. 

Ay, none shall live, to hear the storm 
Around their blackened pillars sweep ; 

To shudder at the reptile's form, 
Or scare the wild bird from her sleep. 



TO MY COMPANIONS 

Mine ancient chair ! thy wide-embracing arms 
Have clasped around me even from a boy ; 

Hadst thou a voice to speak of years gone by, 
Thine were a tale of sorrow and of joy, 

Of fevered hopes and ill-foreboding fears, 

And smiles unseen, and unrecorded tears. 

And thou, my table ! though unwearied time 
Hath set his signet on thine altered brow, 

Still can I see thee in thy spotless prime, 
And in my memory thou art living now ; 

Soon must thou slumber with forgotten things, 

The peasant's ashes and the dust of kings. 

Thou melancholy mug ! thy sober brown 
Hath something pensive in its evening hue, 

Not like the things that please the tasteless 
clown, 
"With gaudy streaks of orange and of blue ; 

And I must love thee, for thou art mine own, 

Pressed by my lip, and pressed by mine alone. 

My broken mirror ! faithless, yet beloved, 
Thou who canst smile, and smile alike on all, 

Oft do I leave thee, oft again return, 
I scorn the siren, but obey the call ; 

I hate thy falsehood, while I fear thy truth, 

But most I love thee, flattering friend of youth. 

Primeval carpet ! every well-worn thread 
Has slowly parted with its virgin dye ; 

I saw thee fade beneath the ceaseless tread, 
Fainter and fainter in mine anxious eye ; 

So flies the color from the brightest flower, 

And heaven's own rainbow lives but for an 
hour. 



I love you all ! there radiates from our own, 
A soul that lives in every shape we see ; 

There is a voice, to other ears unknown, 
Like echoed music answering to its key. 

The dungeoned captive hath a tale to tell, 

Of every insect in his lonely cell ; 

And these poor frailties have a simple tone, 

That breathes in accents sweet to me alone. 



II. ASTRtEA: THE BALANCE OF 
ILLUSIONS 

[This poem, first delivered before the $ B K 
society of Yale College, August 14, 1850, was 
published the same year and only recently dis- 
appeared as a separate publication ; but upon 
rearranging his poems for an early collective 
edition, Dr. Holmes included a group of Pic- 
tures from Occasional Poems, in which he placed 
certain excerpts from Astroza. These passages 
were retained without the grouped heading in 
his final Riverside edition, and are reproduced 
in this edition. Astrcea, however, has had an 
independent life so long that it seems best to 
reproduce it here, indicating the excerpts in 
their places.] 

What secret charm, long whispering in mine ear, 
Allures, attracts, compels, and chains me here, 
Where murmuring echoes call me to resign 
Their sacred haunts to sweeter lips than mine ; 
Where silent pathways pierce the solemn shade, 
In whose still depths my feet have never 

strayed ; 
Here, in the home where grateful children meet 
And I, half alien, take the stranger's seat, 
Doubting, yet hoping that the gift I bear 
May keep its bloom in this unwonted air ? 
Hush, idle fancy, with thy needless art, 
Speak from thy fountains, my throbbing 

heart ! 

Say, shall I trust these trembling lips to tell 
The fireside tale that memory knows so well ? 
How, in the days of Freedom's dread campaign, 
A home-bred schoolboy left his village plain, 
Slow faring southward, till his wearied feet 
Pressed the worn threshold of this fair retreat ; 
How, with his comely face and gracious mien, 
He joined the concourse of the classic green, 
Nameless, unfriended, yet by nature blest 
With the rich tokens that she loves the best ; 
The flowing locks, his youth's redundant 

crown, 
Smoothed o'er a brow unfurrowed by a frown ; 
The untaught smile that speaks so passing 

plain 
A world all hope, a past without a stain ; 
The clear-hued cheek, whose burning current 

glows 
Crimson in action, carmine in repose ; 
Gifts such as purchase, with unminted gold, 
Smiles from the young and blessings from the 

old. 



334 



APPENDIX 



Say, shall my hand with pious love restore 
The faint, far pictures time beholds no more ? 
How the grave Senior, he whose later fame 
Stamps on our laws his own undying name, 
Saw from on high, with half paternal joy, 
Some spark of promise in the studious boy, 
And bade him enter, Avith benignant tone, 
Those stately precincts which he called his 

own, 
Where the fresh student and the youthful sage 
Read by one taper from the common page ; 
How the true comrade, whose maturer date 
Graced the large honors of his ancient State, 
Sought his young friendship, which through 

every change 
No time could weaken, no remove estrange ; 
How the great Master, reverend, solemn, wise, 
Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes, 
Full of grave meaning, where a child might 

read 
The Hebraist's patience and the Pilgrim's 

creed, _ 
But warm with flashes of parental fire 
That drew the stripling to his second sire ; 
How kindness ripened, till the youth might 

dare 
Take the low seat beside his sacred chair, 
While the gray scholar, bending o'er the young, 
Spelled the square types of Abraham's ancient 

_ tongue, 
Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o'er 
His small coarse leaf, alive with curious lore : 
Tales of grim judges, at whose awful beck 
Flashed the broad blade across a royal neck, 
Or learned dreams of Israel's long lost child 
Found in the wanderer of the western wild. 

Dear to his age werememories such as these, 
Leaves of his June in life's autumnal breeze ; 
Such were the tales that won my boyish ear,- 
Told in low tones that evening loves to hear. 

Thus in the scene I pass so lightly o'er, 
Trod for a moment, then beheld no more, 
Strange shapes and dim, unseen by other eyes, 
Through the dark portals of the past arise; 
I see no more the fair embracing throng, 
I hear no echo to my saddened song, 
No more I heed the kind or curious gaze, 
The voice of blame, the rustling thrill of praise ; 
Alone, alone, the awful past I tread 
White with the marbles of the slumbering dead ; 
One shadowy form my dreaming eyes behold 
That leads my footsteps as it led of old, 
One floating voice, amid the silence heard, 
Breathes in my ear love's long unspoken 

word ; — 
These are the scenes thy youthful eyes have 

known ; 
My heart's warm pulses claim them as its own ! 
The sapling, compassed in thy fingers' clasp, 
My arms scarce circle in their twice-told grasp, 
Yet in each leaf of yon o'ershadowing tree 
I read a legend that was traced by thee. 
Year after year the living wave has beat 
These smooth-worn channels with its trampling 

feet, 



Yet in each line that scores the grassy sod 
I see the pathway where thy feet have trod. 
Though from the scene that hears my faltering 

lay, 
The few that loved thee long have passed away, 
Thy sacred presence all the landscape fills, 
Its groves and plains and adamantine hills ! 

Ye who have known the sudden tears that 

flow, — 
Sad tears, yet sweet, the dews of twilight 

woe, — 
When, led by chance, your wandering eye has 

crossed 
Some poor memorial of the loved and lost, 
Bear with my weakness as I look around 
On the dear relics of this holy ground, 
These bowery cloisters, shadowed and serene, 
My dreams have pictured ere mine eyes have* 

seen. 

And oh, forgive me, if the flower I brought 
Droops in my hand beside this burning thought; 
The hopes and fears that marked this destined 

hour, 
The chill of doubt, the startled throb of power, 
The flush of pride, the trembling glow of shame, 
All fade away and leave my Father's name ! 

[Here appears Spring, ante p. 80.] 

What life is this, that spreads in sudden birth 
Its plumes of light around, a new-born earth ? 
Is this the sun that brought the unwelcome day, 
Pallid and glimmering with his lifeless ray, 
Or through the sash that bars yon narrow cage 
Slanted, intrusive, on the opened page ? 
Is this soft breath the same complaining gale 
That filled my slumbers with its murmuring 

m wail ? 
Is this green mantle of elastic sod 
The same brown desert with its frozen clod, 
Where the last ridges of the dingy snow 
Lie till the windflower blooms unstained below ? 

Thus to my heart its wonted tides return 
When sullen Winter breaks his crystal urn, 
And o'er the turf in wild profusion showers 
Its dewy leaflets and ambrosial flowers. 
In vacant rapture for a while I range 
Through the wide scene of universal change, 
Till, as the statue in its nerves of stone 
Felt the new senses wakening one by one, 
Each long closed inlet finds its destined ray 
Through the dark curtain Spring has rent away. 
I crush the buds the clustering lilacs bear; 
The same sweet fragrance that I loved is there ; 
The same f resb hues each opening disk reveals ; 
Soft as of old each silken petal feels ; 
The birch's rind its flavor still retains, 
Its boughs still ringing with the self-same 

strains ; 
Above, around, rekindling Nature claims 
Her glorious altars wreathed in living flames ; 
Undimmed, unshadowed, far as morning shines 
Feeds with fresh incense her eternal shrines. 
Lost in her arms, her burning life I share, 
Breathe the wild freedom of her perfumed air. 



ASTR^EA : THE BALANCE OF ILLUSIONS 



335 



From Heaven's fair face the long-drawn 

shadows roll, 
And all its sunshine floods my opening soul ! 

[Here appears The Study, ante p. 82.] 

See, while I speak, my fireside joys return, 
The lamp rekindles and the ashes burn, 
The dream of summer fades before their ray, 
As in red firelight sunshine dies away. 

A two-fold picture ; ere the first was gone, 
The deepening outline of the next was drawn, 
And wavering fancy hardly dares to choose 
The first or last of her dissolving views. 

No Delphic sage is wanted to divine 
The shape of Truth beneath my gauzy line ; 
Yet there are truths, — like schoolmates, once 

well known, 
But half remembered, not enough to own, — _ 
That, lost from sight in life's bewildering train, 
May be, like strangers, introduced again, 
Dressed in new feathers, as from time to time 
May please our friends, the milliners of rhyme. 

Trust not, it says, the momentary hue 
Whose false complexion paints the present 

view ; 
Red, yellow, violet stain the rainbow's light, 
The prism dissolves, and all again is white. 

[Here appears The Bells, ante p. 83.] 

But how, alas ! among our eager race, 
Shall smiling candor show her girlish face ? 
What place is secret to the meddling crew, 
Whose trade is settling what we all shall do ? 
What verdict sacred from the busy fools, 
That sell the jargon of their outlaw schools ? 
What pulpit certain to be never vexed 
With libels sanctioned by a holy text ? 
Where, my country, is the spot that yields 
The freedom fought for on a hundred fields ? 

Not one strong tyrant holds the servile chain., 
Where all may vote and each may hope to 

reign ; 
One sturdy cord a single limb may bind, 
And leave the captive only half confined, 
But the free spirit finds its legs and wings 
Tied with unnumbered Lilliputian strings, 
Which, like the spider's undiscovered fold, 
In countless meshes round the prisoner rolled, 
With silken pressure that he scarce can feel, 
Clamp every fibre as in bands of steel ! 

Hard is the task to point in civil phrase 
One's own dear people's foolish works or ways ; 
Woe to the friend that marks a touchy fault, 
Himself obnoxious to the world's assault ! 
Think what an earthquake is a nation's hiss, 
That takes its circuit through a land like this ; 
Count with the census, would you be precise, 
From sea to sea, from oranges to ice ; 
A thousand myriads are its virile lungs, 
A thousand myriads its contralto tongues ! 

And oh, remember, the indignant press ; 
Honey is bitter to itsiond caress, 



But the black venom that its hate lets fall 
Would shame to sweetness the hyena's gall ! 

Briefly and gently let the task be tried 
To touch some frailties on their tender side ; 
Not to dilate on each imagined wrong, 
And spoil at once our temper and our song, 
But once or twice a passing gleam to throw 
On some rank failings ripe enough to show, 
Patterns of others, — made of common stuff, — 
The world will furnish parallels enough, — 
Such as bewilder their contracted view, 
Who make one pupil do the work of two ; 
Who following nature, where her tracks divide, 
Drive all their passions on the narrower side, 
And pour the phials of their virtuous wrath 
On half mankind that take the wider path. 

Nature is liberal to her inmost soul, 
She loves alike the tropic and the pole, 
The storm's wild anthem, and the sunshine's 

calm, 
The arctic fungus, and the desert palm ; 
Loves them alike, and wills that each maintain 
Its destined share of her divided reign ; 
No creeping moss refuse her crystal gem, 
No soaring pine her cloudy diadem ! 

Alas ! her children, borrowing but in part 
The flowing pulses of her generous heart, 
Shame their kind mother with eternal strife 
At all the crossings of their mingled life ; 
Each age, each people finds its ready shifts 
To quarrel stoutly o'er her choicest gifts. 

History can tell of early ages dim, 
When man's chief glory was in strength of limb; 
Then the best patriot gave the hardest knocks, 
The height of virtue was to fell an ox ; 
111 fared the babe of questionable mould, 
Whom its stern father happened to behold ; 
In vain the mother with her ample vest 
Hid the poor nursling on her throbbing breast ; 
No tears could save him from the kitten's fate, 
To live an insult to the warlike state. 

This weakness passed, and nations owned 
once more, 
Man was still human, measuring five feet four, 
The anti-cripples ceased to domineer, 
And owned Napoleon worth a grenadier. 

In these mild times the ancient bully's sport 
Would lead its hero to a well known court ; 
Olympian athletes, though the pride of Greece, 
Must face the Justice if they broke the peace, 
And valor find some inconvenient checks, 
If strolling Theseus met Policeman X. 

[Here appears Non-Resistance, ante p. 83.] 

Yet when thy champion's stormy task is done, 
The frigate silenced and the fortress won, 
When toil-worn valor claims his laurel wreath, 
His reeking cutlass slumbering in its sheath, 
The fierce Reclaimer shall be heard once more, 
Whose twang was smothered by the conflict's 
roar ; 



33^ 



APPENDIX 



Heroes shall fall that strode unharmed away 
Through the red heaps of many a doubtful day, 
Hacked in his sermons, riddled in his prayers, 
The broadcloth slashing what the broadsword 
spares ! 

Untaught by trial, ignorance might suppose 
That all our fighting must be done with blows ; 
Alas ! not so ; between the lips and brain 
A dread artillery masks its loaded train ; 
The smooth portcullis of the smiling face 
Veils the grim battery with deceptive grace, 
But in the flashes of its opened fire, 
Truth, Honor, Justice, Peace and Love expire. 

[Here appears The Moral Bully, ante p. 
84.] 

If generous fortune give me leave to choose 
My saucy neighbors barefoot or in shoes, 
I leave the hero blustering while he dares 
On platforms furnished with posterior stairs, 
Till prudence drives him to his " earnest " legs 
With large bequest of disappointed eggs, 
And take the brawler whose unstudied dress 
Becomes him better, and protects him less ; 
Give me the bullying of the scoundrel crew, 
If swaggering virtue won't insult me too ! 

Come, let us breathe ; a something not divine 
Has mingled, bitter, with the flowing line. 
Pause for a moment while our soul forgets 
The noisy tribe in panta-loons or -lets ; 
Nor pass, ungrateful, by the debt we owe 
To those who teach us half of all we know, 
Not in rude license, or unchristian scorn, 
But hoping, loving, pitying, while they warn ! 

Sweep out the pieces ! Round a careless room 
The feather-duster follows up the broom ; 
If the last target took a round of grape 
To knock its beauty something out of shape, 
The next asks only, if the listener please, 
A schoolboy's blowpipe and a gill of peas. 

This creeping object, caught upon the brink 
Of an old teacup, filled with muddy ink, 
Lives on a leaf that buds from time to time 
In certain districts of a temperate clime. 
O'er this he toils in silent corners snug, 
And leaves a track behind him, like a slug ; 
The leaves he stains a humbler tribe devours, 
Thrown off in monthly or in weekly showers ; 
Himself kept savage on a starving fare, 
Of such exuvise as his friends can spare. 

Let the bug drop, and view him if we can 
In his true aspect as a quasi man. 
The little wretch , whose terebrating powers 
Would bore a Paixhan in a dozen hours, 
Is called a critic by the heavy friends 
That help to pay his minus dividends. 

The pseudo-critic-editorial race 
Owns no allegiance but the law of place ; 
Each to his region sticks through thick and 

thin, 
Stiff as a beetle spiked upon a pin. 



Plant him in Boston, and his sheet he fills 
With all the slipslop of his threefold hills, 
Talks as if Nature kept her choicest smiles 
Within his radius of a dozen miles, 
And nations waited till his next Review 
Had made it plain what Providence must do. 
Would you believe him, water is not damp 
Except in buckets with the Hingham stamp, 
And Heaven should build the walls of Paradise 
Of Quincy granite lined with Wenham ice. 

But Hudson's banks, with more congenial 
skies, 
Swell the small creature to alarming size ; 
A gayer pattern wraps his flowery chest, 
A sham more brilliant sparkles on his breast, 
An eyeglass, hanging from a gilded chain, 
Taps the white leg that tips his rakish cane ; 
Strings of new names, the glories of the age, 
Hang up to dry on his exterior page, 
Titanic pygmies, shining lights obscure, 
His favored sheets have managed to secure, 
Wliose wide renown beyond their own abode 
Extends for miles along the Harlaem road ; 
New radiance lights his patronizing smile, 
New airs distinguish his patrician style, 
New sounds are mingled with his fatal hiss, 
Oftenest ''''provincial'''' and " metropolis.'''' 

He cry "provincial" with imperious brow ! 
The half-bred rogue, that groomed his mother's 

cow ! 
Fed on coarse tubers and iEolian beans 
Till clownish manhood crept among his teens, 
When, after washing and unheard of pains 
To lard with phrases his refractory brains, 
A third-rate college licked him to the shape, 
Not of the scholar, but the scholar's ape ! 

God bless Manhattan ! Let her fairly claim, 
With all the honors due her ancient name, 
Worth, wisdom, wealth, abounding and to 

spare, 
Rags, riots, rogues, at least her honest share ; 
But not presume, because, by sad mischance, 
The mobs of Paris wring the neck of France, 
Fortune has ordered she shall turn the poise 
Of thirty Empires with her Bowery boys ! 

The poorest hamlet on the mountain's side 
Looks on her glories with a sister's pride ; 
When the first babes her fruitful ship-yards 

wean 
Play round the breasts of Ocean's conquered 

queen, 
The shout of millions, borne on every breeze, 
Sweeps with Excelsior o'er the enfranchised 

seas! 

Yet not too rashly let her think to bind 
Beneath her circlet all the nation's mind ; 
Our star-crowned mother, whose informing 

soul 
Clings to no fragment, but pervades the whole, 
Views with a smile the clerk of Maiden Lane, 
Who takes her ventral ganglion for her brain ! 
No fables tell us of Minervas born 



NOTES AND ADDENDA 



337 



From bags of cotton or from sacks of corn ; 
The halls of Leyden Science used to cram. 
While dulness snored in purse-proud Amster- 



But those old burghers had a foggy clime, 
And better luck may come the second time ; 
"What though some churls of doubtful sense 

declare 
That poison lurks in her commercial air, 
Her buds of genius dying premature, 
From some malaria draining cannot cure ; 
Nay, that so dangerous is her golden soil, _ 
Whate'er she borrows she contrivesto spoil ; 
That drooping minstrels in a few brief years 
Lose their sweet voice, the gift of other spheres ; 
That wafted singing from their native shore, 
They touch the Battery, and are heard no 

more ; — 
By those twinned waves that wear the varied 

gleams 
Beryl or sapphire mingles in their streams, 
Till the fair sisters o'er her yellow sands, 
Clasping their soft and snowy ruffled hands, 
Lay on her footstool with their silver keys 
Strength from the mountains, freedom from 

the seas, — 
Some future day may see her rise sublime 
Above her counters, — only give her time ! 

When our first Soldiers' swords of honor gild 
The stately mansions that her tradesmen build ; 
When our first Statesmen take the Broadway 

track, 
Our first Historians following at their back ; 
When our first Painters, dying, leave behind 
On her proud Avails the shadows of their mind ; 
When our first Poets flock from farthest scenes 
To take in hand her pictured Magazines ; 
When oiar first Scholars are content to dwell 
Where their own printers teach them how to 

spell ; 
When world-known Science crowds toward her 

gates, 
Then shall the children of our hundred States 
Hail her a true Metropolis of men, 
The nation's centre. Then, and not till then ! 



The song is failing. Yonder clanging tower 
Shakes in its cup the more than brimming 

hour ; 
The full-length gallery which the fates deny, 
A colored Moral briefly must supply. 

[Here appears The Mind's Diet, ante p. 
85.] 

The song is passing. Let its meaning rise 
To loftier notes before its echo dies, 
Nor leave, ungracious, in its parting train 
A trivial flourish or discordant strain. 

These lines may teach, rough-spoken though 
they be, 
Thy gentie creed, divinest Charity ! 
Truth is at heart not always as she seems, 
Judged by our sleeping or our waking dreams. 



[Here appears Our, Limitations, ante p. 85.] 

The song is hushed. Another moment parts 
This breathing zone, this belt of living hearts ; 
Ah, think not thus the parting moment ends 
The soul's embrace of new discovered friends. 

Sleep on my heart, thou long expected hour, 
Time's new-born daughter, with thine infant 

dower, 
One sad, sweet look from those expiring charms 
The clasping centuries strangle in their arms, 
Dreams of old halls, and shadowy arches green, 
And kindly faces loved as soon as seen ! 
Sleep, till the fires of manhood fade away, 
The sprinkled locks have saddened into gray, 
And age, oblivious, blends thy memories old 
With hoary legends that his sire has told ! 



III. NOTES AND ADDENDA 

Page 6. Or gaze upon yon pillared stone. 

The tomb of the Vassall family is marked by 
a freestone tablet, supported by five pillars, and 
bearing nothing but the sculptured reliefs of 
the Goblet and the Sun, — Vas-Sol — which 
designated a powerful family, now almost for- 
gotten. 

The exile referred to in the next stanza was a 
native of Honfleur in Normandy- 

Page 15. _ Poetry. 

[On publishing this poem in the edition of 
1836, Dr. Holmes wrote as follows in the Pre- 
face:] The first poem in the collection being 
somewhat discursive, I will point out, in a few 
words, its scope and connection. Its object is 
to express some general truths on the sources 
and the machinery of poetry ; to sketch some 
changes which may be supposed to have taken 
place in its history, constituting four grand 
eras; and to point out some less obvious mani- 
festations of the poetical principle. The stages 
assigned to the progress of poetry are as fol- 
lows : — 

I. The period of Pastoral and Descriptive 
Poetry ; which allowed a digression upon home, 
and the introduction of a descriptive lyric. 

II. The period of Martial Poetry. At the 
close of this division are some remarks on our 
want of a national song, and an attempt is 
made to enliven the poem by introducing a 
lyric which deals in martial images and lan- 
guage, although written only for an occasional 
purpose. 

III. The Epic or Historic period of Poetry. 
Under this division of the subject, the supposed 
necessity of an American Iliad was naturally 
enough touched upon. 

IV. The period of Dramatic Poetry, or that 
which analyzes, and traces from their origin, 
the passions excited by certain combinations 
of circumstances. As this seemed the highest 
reach of poetical art, so it constitutes the last of 
my supposed epochs. 

The remarks contained in the last division re- 
late to some of the different forms in which 



33* 



APPENDIX 



poetry has manifested itself, and to a pseudo- 
poetical race of invalids, whose melancholic 
notions are due, much oftener than is supposed, 
to the existence of pulmonary disease, fre- 
quently attributed to the morbid state of mind 
of which it is principally the cause. The allu- 
sions introduced at the close will carry their 
own explanation to all for whom they were in- 
tended. I have thus given a general analysis 
of a poem, which, being written for public de- 
livery, required more variety than is commonly 
demanded in metrical essays. 

Page 15. Scenes of my youth. 

This poem was commenced a few months 
subsequently to the author's return to his na- 
tive village, after an absence of nearly three 
years. 

Page 18. Gleams like a diamond on a dancing 

A few lines, perhaps deficient in dignity, were 
introduced at this point, in delivering the poem, 
and are appended in this clandestine manner 
for the gratification of some of my audience. 

How many a stanza, blushing like the rose, 
Would turn to fustian if resolved to prose ! 
How many an epic, like a gilded crown, 
If some bold critic dared to melt it down, 
Roll in his crucible a shapeless mass, 
A grain of gold-leaf to a pound of brass ! 
Shorn of their plumes, our moonstruck son- 
neteers 
Would seem but jackdaws croaking to the 

spheres ; 
Our gay Lotharios, with their Byron curls, 
Would pine like oysters cheated of their pearls ! 

Woe to the spectres of Parnassus' shade, 
If truth should mingle in the masquerade. 
Lo, as the songster's pale creations pass, 
Off come at once the " Dearest " and " Alas ! " 
Crack go the lines and levers used to prop 
Top-heavy thoughts, and down at once they 

drop. 
Flowers weep for hours; Love, shrieking for 

his dove, 
Finds not the solace that he seeks — above. 
Fast in the mire, through which in happier 

time 
He ambled dryshod on the stilts of rhyme, 
The prostrate poet finds at length a tongue 
To curse in prose the thankless stars he sung. 

And though, perchance, the haughty muse it 

shames, 
How deep the magic of harmonious names ! 
How sure the story of romance to please, 
Whose rounded stanza ends with Heloise ! 
How rich and full our intonations ride 
" On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side " ! 
But were her name some vulgar "proper 

noun," 
And Pambamarea changed to Belchertown, 
She might be pilloried for her doubtful fame, 
And no enthusiast would arise to blame; 
And he who outraged the poetic sense, 
Might find a home at Belchertown's expense ! 



The harmless boys, scarce knowing right 
from wrong, 
Who libel others and themselves in song, 
When their first pothooks of poetic rage 
Slant down the corners of an album's page, 
(Where crippled couplets spread their sprawl- 
ing charms, 
As half-taught swimmers move their legs and 

arms,) 
Will talk of "Hesper on the brow of eve," 
And call their cousins " lovely Genevieve ; " • — 
While thus transformed, each dear deluded 

maid, 
Pleased with herself in novel grace arrayed, 
Smiles on the Paris who has come to crown 
This newborn Helen in a gingham gown ! 

Page 19. The leaflets gathered at your side. 

See The Cambridge Churchyard, page 5. 

Page 20. Swept through the world the war-song 
of Marseilles. 

The music and words of the Marseilles Hymn 
were composed in one night. 

Page 20. Our nations anthem pipes a country 
dance ! 

The popular air of "Yankee Doodle," like 
the dagger of Hudibras, serves a pacific as well 
as a martial purpose. 

Page 21. Thus mocked the spoilers with his 
school-boy scorn. 

See Old Ironsides, page 3. 

Page 22. On other shores, above their moulder- 
ing towns. 

Daniel Webster quoted several of the verses 
which follow, in his address at the laying of the 
corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol at 
Washington, July 4, 1851. 

Page 22. Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the 
last. 

" Semper para^ws," — a motto of the revolu- 
tionary standards. 

Page 24. Thou calm, chaste scholar. 

Charles Chauncy Emerson ; died May 9, 
1836. 

Page 24. And thou, dear friend. 

James Jackson, Jr., M. D. ; died March 29, 
1834. 

Page 28. The Steamboat. 

Mr. Emerson has quoted some lines from this 
poem, but somewhat disguised as he recalled 
them. It is never safe to quote poetry without 
referring to the original. 

Page 44. As Wesley questioned in his youthful 
dream. 

Olr\ nep QvWojv yever), TOir/Se x "- avSpiav. 

Iliad, VI. 146. 
Wesley quotes this line in his account of his 
early doubts and perplexities. See Southey's 
Life of Wesley, Vol. II., p. 185. 
Page 46. It tells the turret. 
The churches referred to in the lines which 
follow are 

1. " King's Chapel," the foundation of which 
was laid by Governor Shirley in 1749. 

2. Brattle Street Church, consecrated in 1773. 
The completion of this edifice, the design of 
which included a spire, was prevented by the 



NOTES AND ADDENDA 



339 



troubles of the Revolution, and its plain, square 
tower presented nothing more attractive than a 
massive simplicity. In the front of this tower, 
till the church was demolished in 1872, there 
was to be seen, half embedded in the brick-work, 
a cannon-ball, which was thrown from the 
American fortifications at Cambridge, during 
the bombardment of the city, then occupied by 
the British troops. 

3. The Old South, first occupied for public 
worship in 1730. 

4. Park Street Church, built in 1809, the tall 
white steeple of which is the most conspicuous 
of all the Boston spires. 

5. Christ Church, opened for public worship 
in 1 72S, and containing a set of eight bells, long 
the only chime in Boston. 

Page 54. The Angel spake : This threefold hill 
shall be. 

The name first given by the English to Boston 
was Tei-mountain. The three hills upon and 
around which the city is built are Beacon Hill, 
Fort Hill, and Copp's Hill. 

In the early records of the Colony, it is men- 
tioned, under date of May 6th, 1035, that " A 
beacon is to be set on the Sentry hill, at Boston, 
to give notice to the country of any danger ; to 
be guarded by one man stationed near, and fired 
as occasion may be." The last beacon was 
blown down in 1789. 

The eastern side of Fort Hill was formerly 
" a ragged cliff, that seemed placed by nature 
in front of the entrance to the harbor for the 
purposes of defence, to which it was very soon 
applied, and from which it obtained its present 
name." Its summit is now a beautiful green 
enclosure. 

Copp's Hill was used as a burial-ground from 
a very early period. The part of it employed 
for this purpose slopes towards the water upon 
the northern side. From its many interesting 
records of the dead I select the following, which 
may serve to show what kind of dust it holds. 

" Here lies buried in a 

Stone Grave 10 feet deep 

Capt. Daniel Malcolm Mercht 

who departed this Life 

October 23d, 1769, 

Aged 41 years, 

a true son of Liberty, 

a Friend to the Publiek, 

an Enemy to oppression, 

and one of the foremost 

in opposing the Revenue Acts 

on America." 

The gravestone from which I copied this in- 
scription is bruised and splintered by the bullets 
of the British soldiers. 

Page 79. The Ploughman. 

[The following is the Report referred to in 
the head-note as furnished by Dr. Holmes, in 
his capacity as chairman of the committee.] 

The committee on the ploughing-match are 
fully sensible of the dignity and importance of 
the office entrusted to their judgment. To de- 
cide upon the comparative merits of so many 



excellent specimens of agricultural art is a most 
delicate, responsible, and honorable duty. 

The plough is a very ancient implement. • It 
is written in the English language p-1-o-u-g-h, 
and, by the association of free and independent 
spellers, p-l-o-w. It may be remarked that the 
same gentlemen can, by a similar process, turn 
their coughs into cows ; which would be the 
cheapest mode of raising live stock, although it 
is to be feared that they (referring to the cows) 
would prove biit low-bred animals. Some have 
derived the English word plough from the 
Greek ploutos, the wealth which comes from the 
former suggesting its resemblance to the latter. 
But such resemblances between different lan- 
guages may be carried too far : as for exam- 
ple, if a man should trace the name of the Al- 
tamaha to the circumstance that the first set- 
tlers were all tomahawked on the margin of 
that river. 

Time and experience have sanctioned the 
custom of putting only plain, practical men 
upon this committee. Were it not so, the most 
awkward blunders would be constantly occur- 
ring. The inhabitants of our cities, who visit 
the country during the fine season, would find 
themselves quite at a loss if an overstrained 
politeness should place them in this position. 
Imagine a trader, or a professional man, from 
the capital of the State, unexpectedly called 
upon to act in rural matters. Plough-shares are 
to him shares that pay no dividends. A coulter, 
he supposes, has something to do with a horse. 
His notions of stock were obtained in Fane nil 
Hall market, where the cattle looked funnily 
enough, to be sure, compared with the living 
originals. He knows, it is true, that there is 
a difference in cattle, and would tell you that 
he prefers the sirloin breed. His children are 
equally unenlightened ; they know no more of 
the poultry-yard than what they have learned 
by having the chicken-pox, and playing on a 
Turkey carpet. Their small knowledge of 
wool-growing is lam(b)entable. 

The history of one of these summer-visitors 
shows how imperfect is his rural education. 
He no sooner establishes himself in the country 
than he begins a series of experiments. He 
tries to drain a marsh, but only succeeds in 
draining his own pockets. He offers to pay for 
carting off a compost heap ; but is informed that 
it consists of corn and potatoes in an unfinished 
state. He sows abundantly, but reaps little or 
nothing, except with the implement which he 
uses in shaving ; a process which is frequently 
performed for him by other people, though he 
pays no barber's bill. He builds a wire-fence 
and paints it green, so that nobody can see it. 
But he forgets to order a pair of spectacles 
apiece for his cows, who, taking offence at some- 
thing else, take his fence in addition, and make 
an invisible one of it sure enough. And, finally, 
having bought a machine to chop fodder, which 
chops off a good slice of his dividends, and two 
or three children's fingers, he concludes that, 
instead of cutting feed, he will cut farming ; 
and so sells out to one of those plain, practical 



34° 



APPENDIX 



farmers, such as you have honored "by placing 
them on your committee : whose pockets are 
not so full when he starts, hut have fewer holes 
and not so many fingers in them. 

It must have been one of these practical men 
whose love of his pursuits led him to send in to 
the committee the following hues, which it is 
hoped will be accepted as a grateful tribute to 
the noble art whose successful champions are 
now to be named and rewarded. 
Page 99. The Two Streams. 
When a little poem called The Two Streams 
was first printed, a writer in the New York 
Evening Post virtually accused the author of it 
of borrowing the thought from a baccalaureate 
sermon of President Hopkins of Williamstown, 
and printed a quotation from that discourse, 
which, as I thought, a thief or catchpoll might 
well consider as establishing a fair presumption 
that it was so borrowed. I was at the same 
time wholly unconscious of having met with 
the discourse or the sentence which the verses 
were most like, nor do I believe I ever had seen 
or heard either. Some time after this, happen- 
ing to meet my eloquent cousin, Wendell Phil- 
lips, I mentioned the fact to him, and he told 
me that he had once used the special image said 
to be borrowed, in a discourse delivered at Wil- 
liamstown. On relating this to my friend Mr. 
Buchanan Read, he informed me that he too 
had used the image, — perhaps referring to his 
poem called The Twins. He thought Tennyson 
had used it also. The parting of the streams 
on the Alps is poetically elaborated in a passage 
attributed to "M. Loisne," printed in the Bos- 
ton Evening Transcript for Oct. 23, 1859. Cap- 
tain, afterwards Sir Francis Head, speaks of 
the showers parting on the Cordilleras, one por- 
tion going to the Atlantic, one to the Pacific. 
I found the image running loose in my mind, 
without a halter. It suggested itself as an illus- 
tration of the will, and I worked the poem out 
hy the aid of Mitchell's School Atlas. The 
spores of a great many ideas are floating about 
in the atmosphere. We no more know where 
the lichens which eat the names off from the 
gravestones borrowed the germs that gave them 
birth. The two match-boxes were just alike ; 
hut neither was a plagiarism. — My Hunt after 
"the Captain," pp. 45, 4(5. 
Page 110. International Ode. 
This ode was sung in unison by twelve hun- 
dred children of the public schools, to the air 
of "God save the Queen," at the visit of the 
Prince of Wales to Boston, October 18, 1860. 
Page 113. Poems of the Class of '29. 
[The following is a roll-call of this celebrated 
class in Harvard College.] 

Joseph Angier 

Elbridge Gerry Austin 

Reuben Bates 

George Tyler Bigelow 

William Brigham 

John Parker Buflard 

William Henry Channing 

James Freeman Clarke 

Edwin Conant 



Frederick William Crocker 

Francis Boardman Crowninshield 

Edward Linzee Cunningham 

Benjamin Bobbins Curtis 

Curtis Cutler 

George Thomas Davis 

Jonathan Thomas Davis 

Nathaniel Foster Derby 

Samuel Adams D evens 

George Humphrey Devereux 

Nicholas Devereux 

Charles Fay 

William Emerson Foster 

Francis Augustus Foxcrof t 

Joel Giles 

William Gray 

Charles Lowell Hancock 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

John Hubbard 

Solomon Martin Jenkins 

Albert Locke 

Josiah Quincy Loring 

Samuel May 

Henry Blake McLellan 

Horatio Cook Meriam 

Edward Patrick Milliken 

William Mixter 

Isaac- Edward Morse 

Benjamin Peiree 

George William Phillips 

George Washington Richardson 

Andrew Ritchie 

Chandler Robbins 

James Dutton Russell 

Howard Sargent 

Samuel Francis Smith 

Edward Dexter Sohier 

Charles Storer Storrow 

George Augustus Taylor 

John James Taylor 

Francis Thomas 

James Thurston 

John Rogers Thurston 

SamuelRipley Townsend 

Josiah Kendall Waite 

Joshua Holyoke Ward 

Ezra Weston 

James Humphrey Wilder 

Benjamin Pollard Winslow 

William Young 
Page 118. The Boys. 

The members of the Harvard College class of 
1829 referred to in this poem are : "Doctor," 
Francis Thomas; "Judge," G. T. Bigelow, 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts ; " Speaker," Hon. Francis B. Crown- 
inshield, Speaker of the Massachusetts House 
of Representatives; "Mr. Mayor," G. W. 
Richardson, of Worcester, Mass ; " Member of 
Congress," Hon. George T. Davis ; " Rev- 
erend," James Freeman Clarke ; " boy with the 
grave mathematical look," Benjamin Peiree; 
"boy with a three-decker brain," Judge 
Benjamin R. Curtis, of the Supreme Court of 
the United States ; " nice youngster of excellent 
pith," S. F. Smith, author of "My Country, 
'tis of Thee," 



A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF DR. HOLMES'S POEMS 341 



Page 141. That lovely, bright-eyed boy. 

William Watson Sturgis. 
Who faced the storm so long. 
Francis B. Crowninshield. 
Our many-featured friend . 

George T. Davis. 
Page 119. The Chambered Nautilus. 
I have now and then found a naturalist who 
still worried over the distinction between the 
Pearly Nautilus and the Paper Nautilus, or 
Argonauta. As the stories about both are mere 
fables, attaching to the Plrysalia, or Portuguese 
man-of-war, as well as to these two molluscs, it 
seems over-nice to quarrel with the poetical 
handling of a fiction sufficiently justified by the 
name commonly applied to the ship of pearl as 
well as the ship of paper. 
Page 151. The close-clinging dulcamara. 
The "bitter-sweet" of New England is the 
Celastrus scandens, "bourreau des arbres" of 
the Canadian French. 
Page 164. Ode for a Social Meeting. 
I recollect a British criticism of the poem 
"with the slight alterations," in which the 
writer was quite indignant at the treatment 
my convivial song had received. No committee, 
he thought, would dare treat a Scotch author 
in that way. I could not help being reminded 
of Sydney Smith, and the surgical operation he 
proposed, in order to get a pleasantry into the 
head of a North Briton. 
Page 192. All armed with picks and spades. 
The captured slaves were at this time organ- 
ized as pioneers. 
Page 193. Father, send on Earth again. 
[This hymn was sung to the tune of " Silent 
Night."] 
Page 245. This broad-browed youth. 

Benjamin Robbins Curtis. 
The stripling smooth of face and slight. 

George Tyler Bigelow. 
Page 276. Prelude to a Volume printed 
in Raised Letters for the Blind. 

[This volume was published in 1885 from the 
Howe Memorial Press in Boston, the Prelude 
there called Dedication being dated June 15, of 
that year. There are ninety-one poems in the 
collection, and of these the following were des- 
ignated by Dr. Holmes, who so far aided in 
the selection : — 

The Dorchester Giant. 

The September Gale. 

The Height of the Ridiculous. 

The Living Temple. 

The Voiceless. 

Martha. 

The Flower of Liberty. 

Union and Liberty. 

The Chambered Nautilus. 

Sun and Shadow. 

The Deacon's Masterpiece. 

Contentment. 

Under the Violets. 

The Opening of the Piano. 

Bill and Joe. 

The Old Man Dreams. 

The Boys. 



Dorothy Q. 

The Organ-Blower. 

Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caro- 
line. 

Poem at the Dedication of the Halleck Monu- 
ment. 

A Farewell to Agassiz. 

For the Moore Centennial Celebration. 

A Familiar Letter. 

The Iron Gate. 

My Aviary. 

The Silent Melody.] 



IV. A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF DR. 
HOLMES'S POEMS 

In this list the attempt has been made to date 
the poems either by the occasion or by the first 
printing in periodical form. Whenever the first 
appearance of a poem has been not precisely de- 
termined, the title is printed in italic under 
the year when the volume first including it was 
published. 

1824, 25. Translation from the ^Eneid. 

1830. The Toadstool. 

The Last Prophecy of Cassandra. 
To a Caged Lion. 
To My Companions. 
The Dorchester Giant. 
The Spectre Pig. 

Reflections of a Proud Pedestrian. 
The Mysterious Visitor. 
The Meeting of the Dryads. 
Evening, by a Tailor. 
Stanzas : " Strange ! that one lightly whis- 
pered tone." 
The Height of the Ridiculous. 
Old Ironsides. 

The Ballad of the Oysterman. 
From a Bachelor's Private Journal. 
Daily Trials : by a Sensitive Man. 
The Treadmill Song. 
The Star and the Water-Lily. 
To a Blank Sheet of Paper. 
A Noontide Lyric. 
The Hot Season. 

1831. To an Insect. 
L'Inconnue. 
My Aunt. 
The Last Leaf. 

1832. The Dilemma. 

The Philosopher to his Love. 

The Comet. 

A Portrait. 

" The Wasp " and " The Hornet." 

1833. The Dying Seneca. 

1836. Poetry: A Metrical Essay. 

A Song for the Centennial Celebration of 

Harvard College. 
The Cambridge Churchyard. 
To the Portrait of a Lady. 
To the Portrait of a Gentleman. 
The Music Grinders. 



342 


APPE 


NDIX 




The September Gale. 


1856. For the Meeting of the Burns Club. 




The Last Header. 


Birthday of Daniel Webster. 




Illustrations of a Picture. 


Ode for Washington's Birthday. 




A Roman Aqueduct. 


Our Indian Summer. 




La Grisette. 


1857. Album Verses. 




Lines by a Clerk. 


Latter-Day Warnings. 




The Poefs Lot. 


A Parting Health : to J. L. Motley. 




An Evening Thought. 


Sim and Shadow. 




" Qui Vive ? " 


Prologue. 




A Souvenir. 


Ode for a Social Meeting. 




The Last Prophecy of Cassandra. 


Meeting of the Alumni of Harvard Col- 


1838. 


The Only Daughter. 


lege. 


1810. 


The Steamboat. 


The Parting Song. 




Departed Days. 


1858. Mare Rubrum. 




The Morning Visit. 


The Chambered Nautilus. 


1812. 


Song, written for the Dinner given to 


What We all think. 




Charles Dickens. 


The Last Blossom. 




Song for a Temperance Dinner. 


The Living Temple. 


1813. 


Terpsichore : an After-Dinner Poem. 


Spring has come. 


1844. 


Lines, recited at the Berkshire Jubilee. 


A Good Time Going. 




Verses for Af ter-Dinner. 


The Two Armies. 


1815. 


A Modest Request. 


Musa. 


1816. 


Urania : A Rhymed Lesson. 


The Deacon's Masterpiece. 


1818. 


The Pilgrim's Vision. 


Estivation. 




Lexington. 


Contentment. 




On Lending a Punch-Bowl. 


Prelude. 




The Island Hunting-Song. 


Parson Turell's Legacy. 




Nux Postcoznatica. 


The Voiceless. 




The Parting Word. 


The Old Man of the Sea. 




A Song of Other Bays. 


The Last Look. 




A Sentiment. 


Avis. 




The Stethoscope Song. 
Extracts from a Medical Poem. 


1859. DeSauty. 




For the Burns' Centennial Celebration. 


1849. 


The Ploughman. 


The Boys. 


1850. 


Dedication of the Pittsfield Cemetery. 


The Opening of the Piano. 




Spring. 


The Promise. 




The Study. 


At a Birthday Festival. 




The Bells. 


The Crooked Footpath. 




Non-Resistance. 


The Mother's Secret. 




The Moral Bully. 


The Two Streams. 




The Mind's Diet. 


Robinson of Leyden. 




Our Limitations. 


St. Anthony the Reformer. 


1850-18; 


At a Meeting of Friends. 




The Exile's Secret. 


Midsummer. 




The Lover's Secret. 


Iris, Her Book. 




The Statesman's Secret. 


Under the Violets. 




The Secret of the Stars. 


Hymn of Trust. 


1851. 


To Governor Swain. 


Boston Common : Three Pictures. 




A Song of " Twenty-Nine." 


A Sun-Day Hymn. 


1852. 


Questions and Answers. 


The Gray Chief. 




To an English Friend. 


1860. In Memory of Charles Went worth 


1853. 


A Poem for the Meeting of the Ameri- 


Upham, Jr. 




can Medical Association. 


For the Meeting of the National Sanitary 




After a Lecture on Wordsworth. 


Association. 




After a Lecture on Moore. 


International Ode. 




After a Lecture on Keats. 


Lines. 




After a Lecture on Shelley. 


1861. A Voice of the Loyal North. 




At the Close of a Course of Lectures. 


Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister 




An Impromptu. 
The New Eden. 


Caroline. 


1854. 


Prologue to Songs in Many Keys. 




The Hudson. 


Agnes. 




The Old Man Dreams. 


Martha. 




Semi-Centennial Celebration of the New 


Vive La France. 




England Society. 


Army Hymn. 
Parting Hymn. 


1855. 


A Sentiment. 




Farewell : to J. R. Lowell. 


The Flower of Liberty. 




Remember — Forget. 


Union and Liberty. 



A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF DR. HOLMES'S POEMS 



343 





Under the Washington Elm, Cambridge. 




Aunt Tabitha. 




The Sweet Little Man. 




Our Sweet Singer. 




Union and Liberty. 




Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts. 




The Old Player. 




At the Banquet to the Japanese Embassy. 




The Old Man of the Sea. 




Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table Series. 
The Organ-Blower. 


1862. 


To My Readers. 






J. D. R. 




After the Fire. 




Voyage of the Good Ship Union. 


1873 


H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W. 




To Canaan : a Puritan War-Song. 




What I have come for. 




" Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three 




Address for the Opening of the Fifth 




things." 




Avenue Theatre. 




Never or Now. 




For the Centennial Dinner of the Propri- 


1863. 


" Choose you this day whom ye will 




etors of Boston Pier. 




serve.'' 




A Poem served to Order. 




An Impromptu at the Walcker Dinner. 




The Fountain of Youth. 


1864. 


F. W. C, 


1874. 


Our Banker. 




The Last Charge. 




Opening the Window. 




Shakespeare. 




Programme. 




In Memory of John and Robert Ware. 




An Old- Year Song. 




Hymn written for the Great Central Fair. 




At the Pantomime. 




Bryant's Seventieth Birthday. 




A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party. 




A Sea Dialogue. 




A Toast to Wilkie Collins. 


1863. 


Hymn after the Emancipation Proclama- 




Hymn for the Dedication of Memorial 




tion. 




Hall at Cambridge. 




Edward Everett. 




Hymn at the Funeral Services of Charles 




Our Oldest Friend. 




Sumner. 




Sherman 's in Savannah. 




At the " Atlantic " Dinner. 




One Country. 


1875. 


For Class Meeting. 

Grandmother's Story of Bunker-Hill 




God save the Flag. 






Hymn for the Fair at Chicago. 




Battle. 




A Farewell to Agassiz. 




Lucy. 




For the Services in Memory of Abraham 




Hymn for the Inauguration of the Statue 




Lincoln. 




of Governor Andrew. 




At a Dinner to Admiral Farragut. 




Joseph Warren, M. D. 




At a Dinner to General Grant. 




Old Cambridge. 




For the Commemoration Services, Cam- 


1876. 


A Familiar Letter. 




bridge. 




Ad Amieos. 




No Time Like the Old Time. 




A Memorial Tribute : S. G. Howe. 


1866. 


My Annual. 




Welcome to the Nations. 




America to Russia. 




Unsatisfied. 




To George Peabody. 




How the Old Horse won the Bet. 


1867. 


AU Here. 


1877. 


How not to settle it. 




Chanson Without Music. 




The First Fan. 


1868. 


Bill and Joe. 




To Rutherford Birchard Hayes. 




Once More. 




The Ship of State. 




At the Banquet to the Chinese Embass 




A Family Record. 




To H. W. Longfellow. 




For Whittier's Seventieth Birthday. 




To Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. 




An Appeal for " The Old South." 


1869. 


The Old Cruiser. 


1878. 


My Aviary. 




Hymn for the Class Meeting. 




Two Sonnets : Harvard. 




Humboldt's Birthday. 




The Last Survivor. 




Poem at the Dedication of the Halleck 




The School-Boy. 




Monument. 




The Silent Melody. 




A Hymn of Peace. 
Rip Van Winkle. 


1879. 


The Archbishop and Gil Bias. 


1870. 




Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum. 




Even-Song. 




The Iron Gate. 




Nearing the Snow-Line. 




In Response. 




Hymn for the Celebration at the Laying 




For the Moore Centennial Celebration. 




of the Corner-Stone of Harvard Memo- 


1880. 


The Shadows. 




rial Hall. 




The Coming Era. 


1871. 


The Smiling Listener. 




To James Freeman Clarke. 




Dorothy Q. 




Welcome to the Chicago Commercial 




Welcome to the Grand Duke Alexis. 




Club. 




At the Banquet to the Grand Duke 




American Academy Centennial Celebra- 




Alexis. 




tion. 


1872. 


Homesick in Heaven. 




Our Home — Our Country. 




Fantasia. 


1881. 


Benjamin Peirce. 



344 



APPENDIX 





Poem at the Centennial Anniversary- 


1887. 


The Broken Circle. 




Dinner of the Massachusetts Medical 




To John Greenleaf Whittier. 




Society. 




Hymn read at the Dedication of the Oliver 




Post-Prandial, $ B K. 




Wendell Holmes Hospital. 




Rhymes of a Life-Time. 




Additional Verses to Hail Columbia. 




Boston to Florence. 




Poem for the Dedication of the Fountain 




On the Death of President Garfield. 




at Stratford-on-Avon. 




On the Threshold. 


1888. 


The Angel-Thief. 




At the Papyrus Club. 




At My Fireside. 


1882. 


In the Twilight. 




For the Dedication of the New City Li- 




Our Dead Singer. 




brary, Boston. 




Two Poems to Harriet Beecher Stowe. 




The Golden Flower. 




At the Unitarian Festival. 


1889. 


After the Curfew. 




The Flaneur. 




To James Russell Lowell. 


1883. 


Poem read at the Dinner given to the 




To the Eleven Ladies. 




Author by the Medical Profession of the 


1890. 


But One Talent. 




City of New York. 




The Peau de Chagrin of State Street. 




A Loving-Cup Song. 




Cacoethes Scribendi. 




King's Chapel. 




The Rose and the Fern. 




Hymn for the Two Hundredth Anni- 




I like you and I love you. 




versary of King's Chapel. 




La Maison D'Or. 


1884. 


The Girdle of Friendship. 




Too Young for Love. 




At the Saturday Club. 




The Broomstick Train. 




Ave. 




Tartarus. 


1885. 


The Lyre of Anacreon. 




At the Turn of the Road. 




A Welcome to Dr. Benjamin Apthorp 




Invita Minerva. 




Gould. 


1891. 


For the Window in St. Margaret's. 




To Frederick Henry Hedge. 




James Russell Lowell. 




To James Russell Lowell. 




To My Old Readers. 




To the Poets who only read and listen. 




Readings Over the Teacups, Connecting 




Prelude to a Volume printed in Raised 




Passages. 




Letters for the Blind. 


1892. 


In Memory of John Greenleaf Whittier. 


1886 


The Old Tune. 


1893. 


To the Teachers of America. 




Poem for the Two Hundred and Fiftieth 




Hymn for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary 




Anniversary of the Founding of Har- 




of the Boston Young Men's Christian 




vard College. 




Union. 




Hymn — The Word of Promise. 




Francis Parkman. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



A crazy bookcase, placed before, 183. 
A health to dear woman ! She bids us un- 
twine, 42. 
A health to him whose double wreath displays, 

293. 
A lovely show for eyes to see, 249. 
A prologue ? Well, of course the ladies know, 

153. 
A sick man's chamber, though it often boast, 

58. 
A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face, 331. 
A triple health to Friendship, Science, Art, 63. 
Afar he sleeps whose name is graven here, 296. 
Ah Clemence ! when I saw thee last, 326. 
Ah, here it is ! the sliding rail, 164. 
All overgrown with bush and fern, 109. 
Alone, beneath the darkened sky, 269. 
Alone ! no climber of an Alpine cliff, 175. 
An usher standing at the door, 249. 
And can it be you 've found a place, 231. 
And what shall be the song to-night, 116. 
Angel of Death ! extend thy silent reign ! 87. 
Angel of love, for every grief, 288. 
Angel of Peace, thou hast wandered too long ! 

223. 
Another clouded night ; the stars are hid, 171. 
As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of 

green, 150. 
As Life's unending column pours, 59. 
As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet, 41. 
As the voice of the watch to the mariner's 

dream. 93. 
As through the forest, disarrayed, 186. 
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 4. 

Bankrupt ! our pockets inside out ! 249. 

Behold — not him we knew ! 103. 

Behold the rocky wall, 100. 

Behold the shape our eyes have known ! 229. 

Brave singer of the coming time, 155. 

Brief glimpses of the bright celestial spheres, 

172. 
Bright on the banners of lily and rose, 232. 
" Bring me my broken harp," he said, 263. 
Brothers, whom Ave mav not reach, 200. 
But what is this ? 181. 

Changeless in beautv, rose-hues on her cheek, 

268. 
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, 

255. 
Clear the brown path, to meet his coulter's 

gleam ! 79. 
Come back to your mother, ye children, for 

shame, 34. 



Come, dear old comrade, you and I, 113. 
Come j fill a fresh bumper, for why should we 

go, 162. 
Come, heap the fagots ! Ere we go, 145. 
Come, spread your wings, as I spread mine, 

90. 

Day hath put on his jacket, and around, 9. 

Dear friends, left darkling in the long eclipse, 
276. 

Dear friends, we are strangers ; we never be- 
fore, 220. 

Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave, 89. 

Dearest, a look is but a ray, 328. 

Devoutest of my Sunday friends, 187. 

Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the 
Sea? 109. 

Eighty years have passed, and more, 195. 
Enchanter of Erin, whose magic has bound us, 

253. 
Ere yet the warning chimes of midnight sound, 

213. 

Facts respecting an old arm-chair, 160. 

Fallen with autumn's falling leaf, 289. 

Farewell, for the bark has her breast to the 
tide, 97. 
; Fast as the rolling seasons bring, 122. 

Father of Mercies, Heavenly Friend, 196. 

Father, send on Earth again, 193. 

Fit emblem for the altar's side, 274. 
. Flag of the heroes who left us their glory, 198. 

Flash out a stream of blood-red wine, 117. 
; For him the Architect of all, 143. 
I Four summers coined their golden light in 
| leaves, 208. 

Friend, whom thy fourscore winters leave more 
dear, 275. 

Friend, you seem thoughtful. I not Avonder 
| much, 218. 

From my lone turret as I look around, 176. 
I From the first gleam of morning to the gray, 
, 268. 

From this fair home behold on either side, 
301. 

Full sevenscore years our city's pride, 237. 

Full well I know the frozen hand has come, 
286. 

Giver of all that crowns our days, 194. 
Go seek thine earth-born sisters, — thus the 
Voice, 169. 
I God bless our Fathers' Land ! 110. 
Grandmother's mother : her age, I guess, 187. 



345 



346 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



Hang out our banners on the stately tower ! 

216. 
Has there any old fellow got mixed with the 

boys? 118. 
Have I deserved your kindness ? Nay, my 

friends, 68. 
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss 

shay, 158. 
He died not as the martyr dies, 332. 
He rests from toil ; the portals of the tomb, 298. 
He sleeps not here ; in hope and prayer, 165. 
He was all sunshine ; in his face, 103. 
Her hands are cold ; her face is white, 163. 
Here ! sweep these foolish leaves away, 167. 
Here 's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine, 128. 
His birthday. — Nay, we need not speak, 107. 
How beauteous is the bond, 300. 
How long will this harp which you once loved to 

hear, 125. 
" How many have gone ? " was the question of 

old, 142. 
How sweet the sacred legend — if unblamed, 

317. 
How the mountains talked together, 203. 
How to address him ? awkward, it is true, 239. 

I am not humble ; I was shown my place, 176. 

I asked three little maidens who heard the or- 
gan play, 215. 

I believe that the copies of verses I 've spun, 
250. 

I bring the simplest pledge of love, 255. 

I claim the right of knowing whom I serve, 177. 

I don't think I feel much older ; I 'm aware 
I 'm rather gray, 141. 

I give you the health of the oldest friend, 124. 

I have come with my verses — I think I may 
claim, 134. 

I hold a letter in my hand, 62. 

I like, at times, to hear the steeples' chimes, 138. 

I Like you met I Love you, face to face, 301. 

I love all sights of earth and skies, 284. 

I love to hear thine earnest voice, 7. 

I may not rightly call thy name, 100. 

I must leave thee, lady sweet ! 40. 

I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee, 
164. 

I remember — why, yes ! God bless me ! and 
was it so long ago ? 108. 

I saw him once before, 5. 

I saw the curl of his waving lash, 8. 

I sometimes sit beneath a tree, 14. 

I stood on Sarum's treeless plain, 147. 

I suppose it 's myself that you 're making allu- 
sion to, 227. 

I thank you, Mr. President, you 've kindly 
broke the ice, 104. 

I was sitting with my microscope, upon my par- 
lor rug, 34. 

I was thinking last night, as I sat in the cars, 
36. 

I wrote some lines once on a time, 14. 

If all the trees in all the woods were men, 300. 

If every tongue that speaks her praise, 272. 

If sometimes in the dark blue eye, 331. 

I 'm ashamed, — that 's the fact, — it 's a piti- 
ful case, 119. 



I 'm not a chicken ; I have seen, 13. 

I 'm the fellah that tole one day, 160. 

In candent ire the solar splendor flames, 158. 

In narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse, 54. 

In poisouous dens, where traitors hide, 192. 

In the hour of twilight shadows, 26. 

In the little southern parlor of the house you 

may have seen, 166. 
Is it a weanling's weakness for the past, 286. 
Is man's the only throbbing heart that hides, 

319. 
Is thy name Mary, maiden fair ? 327. 
It is a pity and a shame — alas ! alas ! I know 

it is, 136. 
It is not what we say or sing, 126. 
It may be so, — perhaps thou hast, 329. 
It may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings, 

130. 
It was a tall young oysterman lived by the 

river-side, 329. 
It was not many centuries since, 321. 
It was the stalwart butcher man, 323. 

Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn, 170. 

Lady, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn, 

301. 
Land where the banners wave last in the sun, 

195. 
Leader of armies, Israel's God, 229. 
Let greener lands and bluer skies, 326. 
Let me retrace the record of the years, 174. 
Like the tribes of Israel, 124. 
Listen, young heroes ! your country is calling ! 

192. 
Little I ask ; my wants are few, 157. 
Look our ransomed shores around, 291. 
Look out ! Look out, boys ! Clear the track ! 

302. 
Lord of all being ! throned afar, 163. 
Lord, Thou hast led us as of old, 288. 
" Lucy." — The old familiar name, 228. 

Mine ancient chair ! thy wide embracing arms, 

333. 
My aunt ! my dear unmarried aunt ! 8. 

Nay, blame me not ; I might have spared, 1. 

New England, we love thee ; no time can erase, 
96. 

No fear lest praise should make us proud ! 166. 

No life worth naming ever comes to good, 85. 

No more the summer floweret charms, 31. 

No mystic charm, no mortal art, 212. 

No ! never such a draught was poured, 190. 

Not bed-time yet ! The night-winds blow, 144. 

Not charity we ask, 100. 

Not in the world of light alone, 101. 

Not to myself this breath of vesper song, 239. 

Not with the anguish of hearts that are break- 
ing, 214. 

Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, 7.^ 

Now, men of the North ! will you join in the 
strife, 123. 

Now, smiling friends and shipmates all, 204. 

Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles, 
197. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



347 



even-handed Nature ! we confess, 202. 

God ! in danger's darkest hour, 194. 

O Lord of Hosts ! Almighty Kiug ! 196. 

Love Divine, that stooped to share, 1133. 

O my lost beauty ! — hast thou folded quite, 150. 

Thou of soul and sense and breath, 208. 

O'ershadowed by the walls that climb, 287. 

Oh for one hour of youthful joy ! 115. 

Oh ! I did love her dearly, 327. 

Oh. there are times, 9. 

Old Rip Van Winkle had a grandson, Rip, 63. 

Old Time, in whose bank we deposit our notes, 

135. 
Once more Orion and the sister Seven, 273. 
Once more, ye sacred towers, 215. 
One broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous 

bay, 92. 
One country ! Treason's writhing asp, 193. 
One memory trembles on our lips, 133. 
One word to the guest we have gathered to 

greet! 199. 
" Only a housemaid ! " She looked from the 

kitchen, 234. 
Our ancient church ! its lowly tower, 5. 
Our Father ! while our hearts unlearn, 298. 
Our poet, who has taught the Western breeze, 

206. 

Perhaps too far in these considerate days, 83. 
Poor conquered monarch ! though that haughty 

glance, 321. 
Precisely. I see it. You all want to say, 131. 
Pride of the sister realm so long our own, 271. 
Proud of her clustering spires, her new-built 

towers, 276. 
Proudly, beneath her glittering dome, 293. 

4i Qui vive ? " The sentry's musket rings, 331. 

Reader — gentle — if so be, 185. 

Say not the Poet dies ! 214. 
Scarce could the parting ocean close, 94. 
Scene, — a back parlor in a certain square, 37. 
Scenes of my youth ! awake its slumbering 

fire ! 15. 
See how yon flaming herald treads, 28. 
Sexton ! Martha 's dead and gone, 104. 
Shadowed so long by the storm-cloud of danger, 

199. 
She came beueath the forest dome, 39. 
She gathered at her slender waist, 145. 
She has gone, — she has left us in passion and 

pride, 111. 
She twirled the string of golden beads, 325. 
Shine soft, ye trembling tears of light, 91. 
Sire, son, and grandson ; so the century glides, 

256. 
Sister, we bid you welcome, — we who stand, 

272. 
Slow toiling upward from the misty vale, 191. 
Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, 

28. 
Strange ! that one lightly whispered tone, 327. 
Such kindness ! the scowl of a cynic would 

soften, 252. 
Sweet Mary. I have never breathed, 326. 



Teachers of teachers ! Yours the task, 298. 
Tell me, O Provincial ! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal ! 

167. 
That age was older once than now, 152. 
The Banker's dinner is the stateliest feast, 307. 
The Caliph ordered up his cook, 221. 
The clock has struck noon ; ere it thrice tell 

the hours, 115. 
The Comet ! He is on his way, 11. 
The curtain rose; in thunders long and loud, 85. 
The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell, 330. 
The dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal 

rung, 133. 
"The Dutch have taken Holland," — so the 

schoolboys used to say, 284. 
The feeble sea-birds, blinded in the storms, 61. 
The folks, that on the first of May, 330. 
The fount the Spaniard sought in vain, 222. 
The friends that are, and friends that were, 120. 
The glory has passed from the goldenrod's 

plume, 304. 
The god looked out upon the troubled deep, 321. 
The house was crammed from roof to floor, 189. 
The land of sunshine and of song ! 110. 
The minstrel of the classic lay, 146. 
The mountains glitter in the snow, 97. 
The muse of boyhood's fervid hour, 137. 
The noon of summer sheds its ray, 106. 
The painter's and the poet's fame, 207. 
The piping of our slender, peaceful reeds, 72. 
The Play is over. While the light, 148. 
The pledge of Friendship ! it is still divine, 42. 
The seed that wasteful autumn cast, 90. 
The Ship of State ! above her skies are blue, 

239. 
The snows that glittered on the disk of Mars, 

174. 
The stars are rolling in the sky, 13. 
The stars their early vigils keep, 33. 
The summer dawn is breaking, 114. 
The sunbeams, lost for half a year, 152. 
The sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline, 326. 
The sun is fading in the skies, 332. 
The sun stepped down from his golden throne, 

325. 
The tale I tell is gospel true, 73. 
The time is racked with birth-pangs ; every 

hour, 180. 
The two proud sisters of the sea, 331. 
The waves unbuild the wasting shore, 277. 
The wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave, 92. 
There are three ways in which men take, 12. 
There is no time like the old time, when you 

and I were young, 222. 
There was a giant in time of old, 10. 
There was a sound of hurrying feet, 322. 
There was a young man in Boston town, 60. 
There 's a thing that grows by the fainting 

flower, 323. 
These hallowed precincts, long to memory dear, 

257. 
They bid me strike the idle strings, 32. 
They tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, 

251. 
This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good 

old times, 29. 
This is our place of meeting ; opposite, 269. 



348 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 149. 

This is your month, the month of "perfect 
days," 274. 

This shred of song 1 yon bid me bring, 146. 

Thou Gracious Power, whose mercy lends, 129. 

Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the 
choir, 296. 

Thou, too, hast left us. While with heads 
bowed low, 297. 

Thou who hast taught the teachers of man- 
kind, 206. 

Though watery deserts hold apart, 198. 

Though young no more, we still would dream, 
156. 

Three paths there be where Learning's favored 
sons, 264. 

Through my north window, in the wintry wea- 
ther, 247. 

Thus I lift the sash, so long, 185. 

Time is a thief who leaves his tools behind 
him, 147. 

'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, 
one remembers, 224. 

'T is midnight: through my troubled dream, 
120. 

'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, 102. 

To God's anointed and his chosen flock, 251. 

Too young for love ? 301. 

Trained in the holy art whose lifted shield, 220. 

Truth: So the frontlet's older legend ran, 231. 

'T was a vision of childhood that came with its 
dawn, 94. 

'T was on the famous trotting ground, 234. 

Twice had the mellowing sun of autumn 
crowned, 277. 

Vex not the Muse with idle prayers, 305. 

Wan-visaged thing ! thy virgin leaf, 328. 
Washed in the blood of the brave and the 

blooming, 194. 
We count the broken lyres that rest, 99. 
We sing " Our Country's " song to-night, 120. 
We trust and fear, we question and believe, 85. 
We welcome you, Lords of the Land of the 

Sun! 201. 
We will not speak of years to-night, 102. 
Welcome to the day returning, 98. 
Welcome, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam, 

291. 
Well, Miss, I wonder where you live, 11. 
What ailed young Lucius ? Art had vainly 

tried, 313. 
What am I but the creature Thou hast made, 

178. 
What flower is this that greets the morn, 196. 
What if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved, 

182. 
What is a poet's love ? 328. 
What makes the Healing Art divine ? 106. 



What secret charm, long whispering in mine 

ear, 333. 
Whatever I do, and whatever I say, 171. 
When Advent dawns with lessening days, 290. 
When Eve had led her lord away, 155. 
When evening's shadowy fingers fold, 292. 
When legislators keep the law, 155. 
When life hath run its largest round, 98. 
When o'er the street the morning peal is flung, 

83. 
When rose the cry " Great Pan is dead ! " 237. 
When the Puritans came over, 30. 
When treason first began the strife, 205. 
Where are you going, soldiers, 191. 
Where, girt around by savage foes, 215. 
Where is this patriarch you are kindly greet- 
ing ? 243. 
Where, oh where, are the visions of morning, 

115. 
While far along the eastern sky, 188. 
While fond, sad memories all around us throng, 

244. 
While in my simple gospel creed, 304. 
Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm 

unknown, 211. 
" Who gave this cup ? " The secret thou 

wouldst steal, 300. 
Who is the shepherd sent to lead, 102. 
Who of all statesmen is his country's pride, 315. 
Why linger round the sunken wrecks, 290. 
" Will I come?" That is pleasant ! I beg to 

inquire, 127. 
Winter is past ; the heart of Nature warms, 80. 
Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his 

breast, 210. 

Ye that have faced the billows and the spray, 

311. 
Ye who yourselves of larger worth esteem, 295. 
Yes, dear departed, cherished days, 32. 
Yes, dear Enchantress, — wandering far and 

long, 43. 
Yes, lady ! I can ne'er forget, 332. 
Yes ! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, 

going fast, 140. 
Yes, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you 

hate, 121. 
Yes, we knew we must lose him, — though 

friendship may claim, 151. 
Yes, write, if you want to, there 's nothing like 

trying, 232. 
Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late, 82. 
Yon whey-faced brother, who delights to wear, 

84. 
You bid me sing, — can I forget, 219. 
You know " The Teacups," that congenial set, 

306. 
You '11 believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to 

rise, 117. 
Your home was mine, — kind Nature's gift, 263. 



INDEX OF TITLES 

[The titles of the main divisions of this book are set in small capitals.] 



4i Ad Amicos," 137. 

Address for the Opening of the Fifth Avenue 

Theatre, 216. 
^Estivation, 158. 
After a Lecture on Keats, 92. 
After a Lecture on Moore, 91. 
After a Lecture on Shelley, 92. 
After a Lecture on Wordsworth, 90. 
After-Dinner Poem, 54. 
After the Curfew, 148. 
After the Fire, 188. 
Agnes, 72. 
Album Verses, 155. 
AH here, 126. 
America to Russia, 198. 

American Academy Centennial Celebration, 256. 
Angel-Thief, The, 147. 
Appeal for " The Old South," An, 236. 
Archbishop, The, and Gil Bias, 141. 
Army Hymn, 196. 
Astraea, 333. 

At a Meeting of Friends, 108. 
At My Fireside, 269. 
At the Papyrus Club, 249. 
At the Saturday Club, 269. 
At the Turn of the Road, 304. 
At the Unitarian Festival, 277. 
Atlantic Dinner, At the, 227. 
Aunt. My, 8. 
Aunt Tabitha, 171. 
Ave, 286. 
Aviarv. My, 247. 
Avis, 100. 

Bachelor's Private Journal, From a, 326. 

Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party, A, 190. 

Ballad of the Oysterman, The, 329. 

Banker's Secret, The, 307. 

Banquet to the Chinese Embassy, At the, 200. 

Banquet to the Grand Duke Alexis, At the, 199. 

Banquet to the Japanese Embassy, At the, 201. 

Before the Curfew, 269. 

BeUs, The, 83. 

Bill and Joe, 113. 

Birthday Festival. At a, 102. 

Birthdav of Daniel Webster, 98. 

Birthdav Tribute to J. F. Clarke, A, 102. 

Blank Sheet of Paper, To a, 328. 

Boston Common, 109. 

Boston to Florence. 276. 

Bovs, The, 118. 

Broken Circle, The, 147. 

Broomstick Train, The, 301. 

Brother Jonathan's Lament, 111. 

Bryant's Seventieth Birthday, 202. 



i Bunker-Hill Battle and Other Poems 
! (1874-1877), 224. 

Burns Centennial Celebration, For the, 107. 

But One Talent, 295. 

Cacoethes Scribendi, 300. 
Caged Lion, To a, 324. 
Cambridge Churchyard, The, 5. 
Canaan, To, 191. 

Centennial Dinner of the Massachusetts Medi- 
cal Society, 264. 
Chambered Nautilus, The, 149. 
Chanson without Music, 219. 
" Choose You this Day," 121. 
Clarke, James Freeman, To, 255. 
Close of a Course of Lectures, At the, 93. 
Comet, The, 11. 
Coming Era, The, 251. 
Contentment, 157. 
Crooked Footpath, The, 164. 

Daily Trials, 9. 

De Sauty, 167. 

Deacon's Masterpiece, The, 158. 

Death of President Garfield, On the, 289. 

Dedication of the Fountain at Stratford-on- 

Ayon, # 291. 
Dedication of the Halleck Monument, Poem at 

the, 214. 
Dedication of the New City Library, Boston, 

For the, 293. 
Dedication of the Pittsfield Cemetery, 87. 
Departed Days, 32. 
Dilemma, The, 7. 

Dinner to Admiral Farragut, At a, 204. 
Dinner to General Grant, At a, 205. 
Dorchester Giant, The, 10. 
Dorothy Q., 186. 
Dying Seneca, The, 332. 

Earlier Poems, 3. 

Edward Everett, 210. 

Ehrenberg, Christian Gottfried, To, 206. 

English Friend, To an, 90. 

Epilogue to the Breakfast-Table Series, 183. 

Even-Song, 130. 

Evening, by a Tailor, 9. 

Evening Thought, Au, 331. 

Exile's Secret, The, 311. 

Extracts from a Medical Poem, 61. 

Familiar Letter, A, 232. 
Family Record, A, 239. 
Fantasia, 170. 
Farewell to Agassiz, A, 203. 



349 



35° 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Farewell to J. R. Lowell, 97. 


Hymn read at the Dedication of the Oliver 
Wendell Holmes Hospital at Hudson, Wis- 


First Fan, The, 237. 


First Verses, 321. 


consin, 288. 


Flaneur, The, 284. 


Hymn written for the Great Central Fair in 


Flower of Liberty, The, 196. 


Philadelphia, 193. 


For Class Meeting, 136. 


Hymn written for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary 


For the Burns Centennial Celebration, 107. 


of the Reorganization of the Boston Young 


For the Centennial Dinner of the Proprietors of 


Men's Christian Union, 298. 


Boston Pier, 220. 


Hymn, The Word of Promise, 288. 


For the Commemoration Services, 208. 




For the Dedication of the New City Library, 


I Like you and I Love you, 301. 


Boston, 293. 


Illustration of a Picture, 325. 


For the Meeting of the Burns Club, 97. 


Impromptu, An, 115. 


For the Meeting of the National-Sanitary Asso- 


Impromptu at the Walcker Dinner upon the 


ciation, 106. 


Completion of the Great Organ for Boston 


For the Moore Centennial Celebration, 253. 


Music Hall, An, 215. 


For the Service? in Memory of Abraham Lin- 


In Memory of Charles Went worth Upham, Jr., 


coln, 208. 


103. 


For the Window in St. Margaret's, 296. 


In Memory of John and Robert Ware, 212. 


For Whittier's Seventieth Birthday, 250. 


In Memory of John Greenleaf Whittier, 297. 


Fountain of Youth, The, 222. 


In Response, 252. 


Freedom, Our Queen, 195. 


In the Quiet Days, 186. 


F. W. C, 122. 


In the Twilight, 144. 




In War Time, 191. 


Garfield, President, On the Death of, 289. 


Indian Summer, Our, 117. 


Girdle of Friendship, The, 145. 


Insect, To an, 7. 


God save the Flag, 194. 
Golden Flower, The, 290. 


International Ode, 110. 


Iris, Her Book, 164. 


Good Time Going, A, 155. 


Iron Gate, The, 243. 


Gould, Dr. Benjamin Apthorp, A Welcome to, 


Island Hunting-Song, The, 31. 


273. 


In vita Minerva, 305. 


Governor Swain, To, 89. 




Grandmother's Story of Bunker -Hill Battle, 


J. D. R., 120. 


224. 


Joseph Warren, M. D., 230. 


Gray Chief, The, 102. 






King's Chapel. Read at the Two Hundredth 


H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W., 133. 


Anniversary, 286. 


Hail Columbia ! 290. 




Harvard, 268. 


La Grisette, 326. 


Harvard College, Poem for the Two Hundred 


La Maison d'Or, 301. 


and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of, 


Last Blossom, The, 156. 


277. 


Last Charge, The, 123. 


Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, To, 239. 


Last Leaf, The, 4. 


Hedge, Frederick Henry, To, 274. 


Last Look,The, 103. 


Height of the Ridiculous, The, 14. 


Last Prophecy of Cassandra, 332. 


Homesick in Heaven, 169. 


Last Reader, The, 14. 


Hot Season, The, 330. 


Last Survivor. The, 140. 


How not to settle it, 138. 


Latter-Day Warnings, 154. 


How the Old Horse won the Bet, 234. 


Lexington, 28. 


Hudson, The, 94. 


L'Inconnue, 327. 


Humboldt's Birthday, 213. 


Lines, 119. 


Hymn after the Emancipation Proclamation, 


Lines by a Clerk, 327. 


194. 


Lines recited at the Berkshire Jubilee, 33. 


Hymn at the Funeral Services of Charles Sum- 


Living Temple, The, 101. 


ner, 215. 


Longfellow, H. W., To, 206. 


Hymn for the Class-Meeting, 129. 


Lover's Secret, The, 313. 


Hymn for the Dedication of Memorial Hall at 


Loving-Cup Song, A, 145. 


Cambridge, 215. 


Lowell, James Russell, To, 274, 293. 


Hymn for the Fair at Chicago, 194. 


Lowell, James Russell, 296. 


Hymn for the Inauguration of the Statue of 


"Lucy," 228. 


Governor Andrew, 229. 


Lyre of Anacreon, Ihe, 146. 


Hymn for the Laying of the Corner-Stone of 




Harvard Memorial Hall, 214. 


Mare Rubrum, 117. 


Hymn for the Two Hundredth Anniversary of 


Martha, 104. 


King's Chapel, 287. 


Medical Poems, 58. 


Hymn of Peace, A, 223. 


Meeting of Friends, At a, 108. 


Hymn of Trust, 163. 


Meeting of the Alumni of Harvard College, 104. 



INDEX OF TITLES 



35 



Meeting of the American Medical Association. 


Philosopher to his Love, The, 328. 


62. 


Pilgrim's Vision, The, 26. 


Meeting of the Burns Clnb, For the, 97. 


Ploughman, The, 79. 


Meeting of the Dryads, The. 321. 


Poem at the Centennial Dinner of the Massa- 


Meeting of the National Sanitary Association. 
106. 


chusetts Medical Society, 261. 
Poem for the Dedication of the Fountain at 


Memorial Tribute to Dr. Samuel G. Howe, A, 


Stratford-on-Avon, 291. 


229. 


Poem for the Dedication of the Pittsfield Ceme- 


Memorial Verses, 208. 


tery, 87. 


Midsummer, 167. 


Poem for the Meeting of the American Medical 


Mind's Diet. The, 85. 


Association, 62. 


Modest Kequest, A, 37. 


Poem read at the Dinner given to the Author 


Moral Bully. The. 84. 


by the Medical Profession of the City of New 


Morning Visit, The, 58. 


York, 68. 


Mother's Secret, The, 317. 


Poem served to Order, A, 221. 


Musa, 150. 


Poems from the Autocrat, 149. 


Music Grinders, The, 12. 


Poems from the Professor, 163. 


My Annual. 125. 


Poems from the Poet, 169. 


My Aunt. 8. 


Poems from Over the Teacups, 300. 


My Aviary. 217. 


Poems of the Class of '29, 113. 


Mysterious Visitor, The, 322. 


Poems published between 1837 and 1818, 26. 




Poet's Lot, The, 328. 


Nearing the Snow Line, 191. 


Poetry : a Metrical Essay, 15. 


Never or Now, 192. 


Portrait, A, 331. 


New Eden, The, 91. 


Portrait of kt A Gentleman," To the, 329. 


Xon-Resistanee, 83. 


Portrait of a Lady, To the, 11. 


Xoontide Lyric, A. 330. 


Post-Prandial, 281. 


No Time like the Old Time, 222. 


Prelude (to Parson Turell's Legacy), 160. 


Xtvx Postccenatica, 35. 


Prelude to a Volume printed in Raised Letters 




for the Blind, 276. 


Ode for a Social Meeting (with alterations), 162. 


Programme, 185. 


Ode for Washington's Birthday, 98. 


Prologue, 153. 


Old Cambridge, 230. 


Prologue to Songs in Many Keys, 72. 


Old Cruiser, The, 128. 


Promise, The, 100. 


Old Ironsides, 3. 




Old Man Dreams, The, 115. 


Questions and Answers, 115. 


Old Man of the Sea, The, 109. 


"Qui Vive?" 331. 


Old Player, The, 85. 




Old Tune, The, 116. 


Readings over the Teacups, 306. 


Old- Year Song. An, 186. 


Reflections of a Proud Pedestrian, 8. 


On Lending a Punch-Bowl, 29. 


Remember — Forget, 116. 


On the Threshold, 219. 


Rhymed Lesson, A, 13. 


Once More, 127. 


Rhymes of a Life-Time, 268. 


One Country, 193. 


Rhymes of an Hour, 216. 


Only Daughter, The, 32. 


Rip Van Winkle, M. D„ 63. 


Opening of the Piano, The, 166. 


Robinson of Leyden, 165. 


Opening the Window, 185. 


Roman Aqueduct, A, 326. 
Rose and the Fern, The, 301. 


Organ-Blower, The, 187. 


Our Banker, 135. 




Our Dead Singer. H. W. L., 271. 


School-Boy, The, 257. 


Our Home — Our Country, 263. 


Sea Dialogue, A, 218. 


Our Indian Summer, 117. 


Secret of the Stars, The, 319. 


Our Limitations, 85. 


Semi-Centennial Celebration of the New Eng- 


Our Oldest Friend, 124. 


land Society, 96. 


Our Sweet Singer, 133. 


Sentiment, A, 12, 63. 


Our Yankee Girls, 326. 


September Gale, The, 13. 




Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, For 


Pantomime, At the, 189. 


the, 208. 


Parkman, Francis, 298. 


Shadows, The, 142. 


Parson TurelTs Legacy, 160. 


Shakespeare Tercentennial Celebration, 211. 


Parting Health, A, 151. 


Sherman 's in Savannah, 124. 


Parting Hymn. 196. 


Ship of State, The, 239. 


Parting Song, The, 106. 


Silent Melody, The, 263. 


Parting Word, The, 10. 


Smiling Listener, The, 131. 


Peabody. George, To, 219. 


Song for a Temperance Dinner, 42. 


Peau de Chagrin of State Street, The, 300. 


Song for the Centennial Celebration of Harvard 


Peirce, Benjamin, 113. 


College, 30. 



35 2 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Song for the Dinner to Charles Dickens, 33. 


To the Eleven Ladies, 300. I 


Song of Other Days, A, 41. 


To the Poets who only read and listen, 292. 


Song of " Twenty-Nine," A, 114. 


To the Portrait of " A Gentleman," 329. 


Songs in Many Keys, 72. 


To the Portrait of a Lady, 11. 1 


Songs of Many Seasons, 185. 


To the Teachers of America, 298. 1 


Songs of Welcome and Farewell, 198. 


Toadstool, The, 323. 


Souvenir, A, 332. 


Toast to Wilkie Collins, A, 207. 


Spectre Pig, The, 323. 


Too Young for Love, 301. 


Spring, 80. 


Treadmill Song, The, 13. 


Spring has come, 152. 


Two Armies, The, 59. 


St. Anthony the Keformer, 166. 


Two Poems to Harriet Beecher Stowe, 272. | 


St. Margaret's, For the Window in, 296. 


Two Sonnets : Harvard, 251. | 


Stanzas, 327. 


Two Streams, The, 99. J 


Star and the Water-Lily, The, 325. 




Statesman's Secret, The, 315. 


Under the Violets, 163. 


Steamboat, The, 28. 


Under the Washington Elm, 195. 


Stethoscope Sorg, The, 60. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Two Poems to, 272. 


Union and Liberty, 198. 


Unsatisfied, 234. 


Study, The, 82. 


Upham, Charles Went worth, Jr.. In Memor 


Sun and Shadow, 150. 


of, 103. 


Sun-Day Hymn, A, 163. 
Sweet Little Man, The, 197. 




Verses for After-Dinner, 36. 




Verses from the Oldest Portfolio, 321. 


Tartarus, 304. 


Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum, 244. 


Teachers of America, To the, 298. 


Vive la France, 110. 


" Thus saith the Lord," 192. 


Voice of the Loyal North, A, 120. 


To a Blank Sheet of Paper, 328. 


Voiceless, The, 99. 


To a Caged Lion, 324. 


Voyage of the Good Ship Union, 120. 


To an English Friend, 90. 




To an Insect, 7. 


Ware, John and Robert, In Memory of, 212. 


To Canaan, 191. 


Wasp and the Hornet, The, 331. 


To Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, 206. 


Welcome to Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, A 


To Frederick Henry Hedge, 274. 


273. 


To George Peabody, 249. 


Welcome to the Chicago Commercial Club, 25f 


To Governor Swain, 89. 


Welcome to the Grand Duke Alexis, 199. 


To H. W. Longfellow, 206. 


Welcome to the Nations, 232. 


To James Freeman Clarke, 255. 


What I have come for, 134. 


To James Russell Lowell, 274. 


What We aU think, 152. 


To John Greenleaf Whittier, 275. 


Whittier, John Greenleaf, In Memory of, 297. 


To My Companions, 333. 
To My Old Readers, 306. 


Whittier, John Greenleaf, To, 275. 


Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts, 171. 


To My Readers, 1. 




To Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 239. 


Youth, 290. 



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